Data reveals mixed authorship

‘Shakespeare will share credit for Henry VI’

LONDON, Oct 25, (Agencies): Seventeen plays attributed to William Shakespeare were written in collaboration with other playwrights, according to an edition of his works coming out this month that uses “big data” to reveal the mixed authorship.

Shakespeare’s reputed rival Christopher Marlowe is credited as co-writer in the Henry VI trilogy of plays while playwright Thomas Middleton is credited as an adaptor for “All’s Well That Ends Well”.

The total number of 17 out of 44 Shakespeare plays is around double the eight in 39 plays identified in the last edition of the complete works by the Oxford University Press in 1986.

Work on the new edition began in January 2009 and 18 scholars in five countries tussled with the authorship issues.

Editors said the discoveries showed that rather than being rivals that influenced each other, Shakespeare and Marlowe actually worked with each other on the plays, thought to have been written in 1591.

“A lot of scholars have suspected this since the 18th century but until very recently we didn’t have any way to prove it that was reliable”, general editor Gary Taylor of Florida State University told AFP.

Comparisons

He said “big data” computerised databases built up in the last 20 years meant experts could conduct precise comparisons of different authors.

They used a range of methods including establishing the sociolect, the way people spoke at the time, and the idiolect, or speech habits of an individual.

They identified words and phrases that were more heavily used by one writer of the time than their contemporaries.

“The whole team is confident that Marlowe wrote some of the scenes in each of these three plays. They had to have both been working on these plays”, said Taylor.

The level of collaboration with Marlowe, whose works include “Doctor Faustus” and “The Jew of Malta”, has thrilled scholars.

“Part of what’s interesting is the interaction of two very different geniuses. It’s why those plays have struck people as being different from Shakespeare”,

which in the United States is the bestselling album released this year.

The boundaries that divide albums, playlists and mixtapes have increasingly said Taylor.

“We can now see that difference is because this is Marlowe, a writer who was very interested in politics, violence and religious conflict.

“Marlowe writes about these things in a different style. These discoveries actually make these plays more interesting, not less”.

Methods

Marlowe, a playwright, poet and spy, will share billing in the latest version of the New Oxford Shakespeare being published this week. While scholars have long suspected that Shakespeare’s plays included the work of others, new analytical methods helped researchers conclude that sections bore the hallmarks of Marlowe’s hand.

“Shakespeare, like other geniuses, recognized the value of other people”, Gary Taylor, a professor at Florida State University and the principal investigator of the new work, said Monday. “What is Shakespeare famous for? Writing dialogue — interactions between two people. You would expect in his life there would be dialogue with other people”.

A team of 23 international scholars looked afresh at the man many consider the greatest writer in the English language. The challenge, put simply: If one is going to compile the complete works of Shakespeare one first has to determine what they are.

Five of the world’s most senior Shakespeare scholars —Taylor, Hugh Craig at the University of Newcastle in Australia, MacDonald P. Jackson at the University of Auckland in New Zealand; Gabriel Egan at De Montfort University, Leicester and John Jowett of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham — had to be convinced of the issues of authorship in the works.

The editors concluded that 17 of 44 works associated with Shakespeare had input from others. The scholars used computerized data sets to reveal patterns, trends and associations — analyzing not only Shakespeare’s words, but also those of his contemporaries.

In Shakespeare’s time, there was an insatiable demand for new material to feed the appetite of the first mass entertainment industry. A relatively small group of people — a cabal of sorts who knew one another — worked feverishly to meet this demand. Taylor

become blurred in hip-hop, although albums are considered more significant artistic statements. (AFP) compared them to screenwriters in the early days of Hollywood.

To study them, the team of scholars used what Taylor described as the analytic equivalent of combining voice recognition, fingerprints and DNA testing — looking for patterns to see how various authors and playwrights wrote and worked.

“Shakespeare has now entered the world of big data”, Taylor said, adding that while the bard’s work has been studied intensively, that’s not always the case in the same measure for other writers of his generation.

Still, he was adamant that this wasn’t just a case of “computers telling us things”. One needs to ask the right question.

“What you need is a method that treats all the writers as the same and try to identify in an empirical way what distinguishes him as a writer — what makes him different than the others”, he said.

Marlowe, born in 1564, the same year as Shakespeare, was a graduate of Cambridge University who wrote poetry and plays such as the two part “Tamburlaine” and “Dido, Queen of Carthage”. A part-time spy for the government of Queen Elizabeth I, Marlowe is believed to have died in 1593 when he was stabbed under mysterious circumstances.

Also: WASHINGTON:

It took just seven days for “Wizard of Oz” nostalgics to raise more than $300,000 in a crowdfunding drive to restore Dorothy’s iconic slippers to their ruby red glory.

The US Smithsonian’s Museum of American History, which owns the slippers, said Monday that its Kickstarter campaign had gone “over the rainbow”.

The sequined pumps were famously worn by Judy Garland as she skipped down the yellow brick road in the 1939 musical, one of Hollywood’s first color films.

Support for restoring them “spanned six continents and 41 countries”, the museum said in a statement.

Since the crowdfunding campaign runs for another 23 more days, the museum announced a “stretch goal” Monday of $85,000 to help conserve and display the movie’s Scarecrow costume (worn by actor Ray Bolger), in an exhibit set to open in 2018.

NEW YORK:

Sting will hit the stage at the American Music Awards next month, and the icon will receive a special honor for his successful career.

Dick Clark Productions said Monday that Sting will receive The American Music Award of Merit on Nov 20 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. The award was last given in 2008, to Annie Lennox. Other recipients include Michael Jackson, Prince, Johnny Cash, Whitney Houston and Paul McCartney.

The 65-year-old former Police lead singer will perform a medley of his hits, including his latest single “I Can’t Stop Thinking About You”. Sting will release a new album, “57th & 9th”, on Nov 11.

Bruno Mars will open the AMAs, which will air live on ABC. Drake is the leading nominee at the fan-voted show. (AP)

LOS ANGELES:

Charlie Puth is canceling the remainder of his tour due to illness.

The singer said on Twitter Sunday that he has been “extremely sick” during the tour and hasn’t taken the time he needs to recover. He says “resting and taking time off the road” is the only way he can get better and resume performing.

The “Don’t Talk Tour” began last month and had been scheduled to run through Nov 8.

Puth hasn’t released any information on whether the remaining tour dates will be rescheduled. (AP)