A History of Brazilian Literature by Isaac Goldberg
Published 1922 · 90,000 words · about 8 hours at an average pace · Literary History, Essays & Criticism
How hard is A History of Brazilian Literature to read?
A History of Brazilian Literature scores 46 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 55 out of 100
- Early-twentieth-century literary journalism; accessible diction without heavy scholarly apparatus.
- Sentence structure: 48 out of 100
- Abstraction: 60 out of 100
- Historical and evaluative argument without theoretical framework; claims are made at a moderate level of generality.
- Information density: 68 out of 100
- Covers a large tradition with many authors; coverage is broad rather than deep.
- Narrative indirection: 12 out of 100
- Survey format means direct statement of evaluations and summaries.
- Symbolic density: 100 out of 100
- No symbolic register; straightforward literary-historical prose.
- Ironic distance: 100 out of 100
- Enthusiastic and earnest tone throughout; no ironic distance.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- Each section concludes with clear evaluative judgments.
- Structural complexity: 32 out of 100
- Simple chronological organization by period and author; easy to navigate.
How A History of Brazilian Literature is regarded
A History of Brazilian Literature holds a literary regard score of 63 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.