5 ms·

William Shakespeare was the author of those plays, if you mean plays like Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet etc. The answer is completely settled, since there is no seri

by goto11 4y ago

William Shakespeare was the author of those plays, if you mean plays like Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet etc. The answer is completely settled, since there is no serious argument that we wasn't, outside of fanciful conspiracy theories. There are legitimate discussions about some of the plays which were likely collaborations between multiple authors (e.g. Edward III, Henry IV 1), and machine learning has been used to try identify the different authors and authorship of different passages. This is an area of open research.

boppo1 4y ago
If you run ML on the historian-uncontested[0] plays the same way as on the ones with likely different/multiple authors, what is the result? Does it say 'this is clearly just one guy'? [0] You sound confident about the consensus. Can you share the material that led you to that? I'm currently under the impression they were all written by multiple authors. HOWEVER, I recognize I'm very low-info on this (or low-quality info at least) and my belief would be easily changed by something reputable and/or with good methodology.
- goto11 4y ago
  > Does it say 'this is clearly just one guy'? It says the majority of the plays are likely written by the same person, since Shakespeare have a distinct "voice" which is clearly different form other contemporary playwrights. But there is a number of pitfalls in the statistical approach because an author might try to mimic the writing style of another author, especially since these collaborations was somewhat like master-apprentice relationships. The Oxford Complete Shakespeare credits Marlowe as co-author of Henry VI part 1, but this is highly controversial since some believe Shakespeare was just strongly inspired by Marlowe in his early plays. Here is a podcast with a bit a bout the controversy: https://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/christopher-marlowe-attribution-henry-vi https://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/christopher-mar... As for the general authorship question, you can just read anything which isn't written by a crackpot. But Oxford has "William Shakespeare - A Very Short Introduction" which is a pocket-size introduction and biography. If you want something meatier, Marjorie Garbers "Shakespeare After All" is a great book.
theGnuMe 4y ago
What about stylometry.. that should be enough…
- jameshart 4y ago
  But what if we can train a language model to produce output that, according to stylometric analysis, is with 90% confidence written by the same person who wrote Hamlet?
  - totetsu 4y ago
    I want to watch a performance of this nouveau Shakespeare.

by goto11 4y ago

boppo1 4y ago

If you run ML on the historian-uncontested[0] plays the same way as on the ones with likely different/multiple authors, what is the result? Does it say 'this is clearly just one guy'? [0] You sound confident about the consensus. Can you share the material that led you to that? I'm currently under the impression they were all written by multiple authors. HOWEVER, I recognize I'm very low-info on this (or low-quality info at least) and my belief would be easily changed by something reputable and/or with good methodology.

goto11 4y ago
> Does it say 'this is clearly just one guy'? It says the majority of the plays are likely written by the same person, since Shakespeare have a distinct "voice" which is clearly different form other contemporary playwrights. But there is a number of pitfalls in the statistical approach because an author might try to mimic the writing style of another author, especially since these collaborations was somewhat like master-apprentice relationships. The Oxford Complete Shakespeare credits Marlowe as co-author of Henry VI part 1, but this is highly controversial since some believe Shakespeare was just strongly inspired by Marlowe in his early plays. Here is a podcast with a bit a bout the controversy: https://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/christopher-marlowe-attribution-henry-vi https://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/christopher-mar... As for the general authorship question, you can just read anything which isn't written by a crackpot. But Oxford has "William Shakespeare - A Very Short Introduction" which is a pocket-size introduction and biography. If you want something meatier, Marjorie Garbers "Shakespeare After All" is a great book.

theGnuMe 4y ago

What about stylometry.. that should be enough…

jameshart 4y ago
But what if we can train a language model to produce output that, according to stylometric analysis, is with 90% confidence written by the same person who wrote Hamlet?
- totetsu 4y ago
  I want to watch a performance of this nouveau Shakespeare.