Shakespeare, Computers, and the Mystery of Authorship

by Edited by Hugh Craig , Arthur F. Kinney

• ISBN13: 9780521516235
• ISBN10: 0521516234
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-09-21
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Craig, Kinney and their collaborators confront the main unsolved mysteries in Shakespeare's canon through computer analysis of Shakespeare's and other writers' styles. In some cases their analysis confirms the current scholarly consensus, bringing long-standing questions to something like a final resolution. In other areas the book provides more surprising conclusions: that Shakespeare wrote the 1602 additions to The Spanish Tragedy, for example, and that Marlowe along with Shakespeare was a collaborator on Henry VI, Parts 1 and 2. The methods used are more wholeheartedly statistical, and computationally more intensive, than any that have yet been applied to Shakespeare studies. The book also reveals how word patterns help create a characteristic personal style. In tackling traditional problems with the aid of the processing power of the computer, harnessed through computer science, and drawing upon large amounts of data, the book is an exemplar of the new domain of digital humanities.

Table of Contents

List of figures	p. vii
List of tables	p. xii
Notes on contributors	p. xiv
Preface and acknowledgments	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Methods	p. 15
The three parts of Henry VI	p. 40
Authoring Arden of Faversham	p. 78
Edmond Ironside and the question of Shakespearean authorship	p. 100
The authorship of The Raigne of Edward the Third	p. 116
The authorship of the Hand-D Addition to The Book of Sir Thomas More	p. 134
The 1602 Additions to The Spanish Tragedy	p. 162
Transforming King Lear	p. 181
Conclusion	p. 202
Plays in the corpus	p. 212
A list of 200 function words	p. 221
Glossary	p. 223
Index	p. 228
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