Abstract: Literary research in the Big Data era can hardly avoid the clamp of computing, and quantitative approach will eventually become one of the important approaches. This paper claims that Franco Moretti's literary quantitative analysis provides a typical example for literary study in the Big Data era. His method of quantitative analysis demonstrates the possibility of the methodological transition from natural sciences to social sciencesvand to humanities. With Popper's theory and contemporary IT advances behind his approach, Moretti exposes the literary significance of the change of novel’s titles after analyzing the titles of Britain's 7000 novel, which also proves the effectiveness and feasibility of quantitative analysis in literary research. Moretti's quantitative analysis of both the form and content of novels has demonstrated the legitimacy of using big data into literary research, but the results of his quantitative analysis can only reveal a general conclusion with the value judgment usually expected of humanities, and this invites debates.

Key words: Big Data, Franco Moretti, quantitative analysis, legitimacy, complexity