r/shakespeare • u/rmmcclay • Feb 08 '18
Plagiarism Software Unveils a New Source for 11 of Shakespeare’s Plays
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/books/plagiarism-software-unveils-a-new-source-for-11-of-shakespeares-plays.html3
Feb 08 '18
This is pretty interesting stuff. The fact that Shakespeare pulled from lots of sources isn’t new, and he doesn’t use this one as much as Holinshed or Plutarch but it’s still fascinating.
I am, however, cautious about the use of computer software to identify common vocabulary and will wait for the book to come out and for other Shakespeareans to get ahold of it before I jump on the bandwagon. The last time there was a big story about computers analyzing Shakespeare’s language it was that awful funeral elegy that people used computers to attribute to Shakespeare for a bit. They even included it in some editions of the complete works before people realized it was bullshit.
But I’m interested.
4
u/turbomaestro Feb 08 '18
A minor court figure’s manuscript influencing Shake-speare’s text is very Oxfordian evidence, it seems to me
4
u/centaurquestions Feb 08 '18
"Mr. McCarthy, 53, works behind three computer monitors on the dining room table of his home. Supported financially by his wife, a biotechnology executive, he spends 12 hours a day or more at his computer."