The conference paper "Univariate Statistical Analysis of a Non-Canonical Literary Genre. Quantifying German-Language One-Act Plays (1740–1850)" explores the use of metadata for literary studies and addresses the need to expand beyond canonical texts. Utilising the Database of German-Language One-Act Plays, Viktor J. Illmer, Dîlan Canan Çakir, Frank Fischer and Lilly Welz (Research Area 5: "Building Digital Communities") together with Carsten Milling examine aspects such as the number of scenes and characters as well as the role of different original languages on which the translated plays in the corpus are based. The authors find that one-act plays exhibit strong genre signals that set them apart from multi-act plays of the time. Their metadata-driven approach provides a comprehensive and statistically grounded understanding of the genre, demonstrating the potential of digital methods to enhance genre studies and overcome traditional limitations in literary scholarship.

The paper was presented at the Computational Humanities Research Conference 2024 (Aarhus, Denmark, December 4–6, 2024) and published with open access in the Proceedings of the CHR 2024 (eds. Wouter Haverals, Marijn Koolen, Laure Thompson).