Renard: A Modular Pipeline for Extracting Character Networks from Narrative Texts

TL;DR

Renard is a flexible Python library that enables the extraction of both static and dynamic character networks from narrative texts through customizable, modular NLP pipelines.

Contribution

It introduces a modular framework for extracting character networks, including dynamic networks, which is more adaptable than existing tools.

Findings

Supports extraction of dynamic character networks

Allows customization of NLP pipeline components

Facilitates analysis of subtask impact on networks

Abstract

Renard (Relationships Extraction from NARrative Documents) is a Python library that allows users to define custom natural language processing (NLP) pipelines to extract character networks from narrative texts. Contrary to the few existing tools, Renard can extract dynamic networks, as well as the more common static networks. Renard pipelines are modular: users can choose the implementation of each NLP subtask needed to extract a character network. This allows users to specialize pipelines to particular types of texts and to study the impact of each subtask on the extracted network.