A Comparative Study of Linguistic Features in Hemingway’s and Fitzgerald’s Novels from the Perspective of Quantitative Stylistics

Abstract

As two central representatives of the American “Lost Generation,” Hemingway and Fitzgerald developed distinct writing styles despite their shared thematic concerns. Previous studies of their styles have been largely qualitative and therefore lack sufficient objective quantitative support. This study constructs two specialized corpora based on their representative works and adopts a mixed quantitative-qualitative approach to compare their stylistic differences at the lexical, syntactic, and textual levels using Python, SPSS, and related tools. The results show that: (1) at the lexical level, word length measured by letters significantly distinguishes the two corpora, whereas word length measured by syllables and lexical density do not; Fitzgerald also displays higher lexical diversity, reflecting his preference for delicate and varied vocabulary in depicting the complex social world of the Jazz Age; (2) at the syntactic level, most indicators reveal significant differences, with Fitzgerald’s works showing greater syntactic complexity and a longer mean sentence length; and (3) at the textual level, no significant difference is found in overall paragraph-length distribution, and both writers tend to favor short, tightly structured paragraphs. This study confirms the effectiveness of quantitative stylistic methods, provides objective evidence for comparing the two authors’ styles, enriches stylistic research on modernist literature, and further promotes empirical approaches to literary studies.