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Proofrdr
Posting = Life = Sad Specimen
Joined: 25 Sep 2007
Posts: 4283
Location: Rhode Island, USA
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 Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 1:01 am Post subject: Software Links Play to Shakespeare |
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There's a program, Pl@giarism, that is used by college professors to catch plagiarized material from their students. It's now being used for more scholarly pursuits and has yielded interesting results. This is the whole article in USA Today:
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A program used to detect plagiarism indicates that William Shakespeare was at least the co-author of an unattributed play about Edward III, The Times of London reports.
Sir Brian Vickers, an authority on Shakespeare at the Institute of English Studies at the University of London, found that a comparison of phrases in The Reign of King Edward III with early works by Shakespeare "proves conclusively" that the bard wrote it in collaboration with Thomas Kyd, a popular contemporary playwright, the newspaper says.
Vickers used the software called Pl@giarism to compare the text from the play, which was anonymously published in 1595, when Shakespeare was 32 years old, with other plays of the period.
He found that there were 200 matches of "linguistic fingerprints" -- phrases of three of more words -- between the play and works by Shakespeare published before 1596.
Likewise, there were a large number of matches in other scenes of the play with works by Kyd, The Times says.
The newspaper quotes Jonathan Bate, professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at the University of Warwick, as saying Vickers' work "creates a more realistic image of Shakespeare than perhaps the romantic view some have of him as a solitary genius.” |
From my own college days, I vaguely remember discussion of possible collaboration between Shakespeare and one or more of his contemporaries. Then it was all conjecture; now we can prove it through linguistic patterning.
I love stuff like this! 
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Baker
Does Stuff Around Here Occasionally
Joined: 11 Dec 2006
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Location: NZ
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| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 2:34 am Post subject: |
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 Word Nerd!
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sacchigreen
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Joined: 21 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 2:43 am Post subject: |
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| I love it too! I wonder if this kind of thing proves that Kyd wasn't actually Shakespeare, or vice versa. And etcetera. |
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Proofrdr
Posting = Life = Sad Specimen
Joined: 25 Sep 2007
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Location: Rhode Island, USA
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| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 3:11 am Post subject: |
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| Baker wrote: |
| Word Nerd! |
You could have called me worse, Baker, but I readily admit it. 
| Sacchi wrote: |
| I love it too! I wonder if this kind of thing proves that Kyd wasn't actually Shakespeare, or vice versa. And etcetera. |
I think it does. It would be almost impossible for someone to fabricate that kind of patterning. I'll bet they use this method to check other works of dubious authorship.
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I want the full menu of rights.
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beerbohm
Unsullied Newbie
Joined: 04 Aug 2009
Posts: 20
Location: Scotland
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 12:47 am Post subject: |
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I think it's been accepted for some time that Shakespeare had collaborators for his early & late works. For the rest my favourite contender is Pembroke.
http://www.marysidney.com/
OK - so I'm predjudiced. |
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sacchigreen
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Joined: 21 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 1:43 am Post subject: |
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| Interesting! I hadn't read about that possibility. |
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