'This book extends the theory of tradition developed in the author's How Tradition Works to address the phenomenon of influence and the related literary problems of genre, aesthetics,
authorship and Harold Bloom's 'anxiety of influence.' The study introduces a new methodology--lexomics, the use of computer-aided statistical analysis to identify influence--and integrates
research from cognitive psychology and evolutionary biology with traditional, philological approaches to literature, specifically the Anglo-Saxon poems of second codicological booklet of the
Exeter Book. An example of 'hard interdisciplinarity,' Tradition and Influence makes technically sound contributions to Anglo-Saxon studies, oral tradition, evolutionary epistemology and
cultural theory'--
