The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.0053  Wednesday, 10 January 2001

From:           David Knauer <
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Date:           Tuesday, 09 Jan 2001 11:48:52 -0600
Subject:        Re: Shakespeare The Player

If we're willing to swap mythology for a more statistical approach, I
recall that one of the results to be gleaned from Don Foster's SHAXICON
research is the roles that Shakespeare was likely to have played.  Based
on the number of rare words that found their way from one role into the
later plays, SHAXICON can show which roles Shakespeare "remembered"
best, and therefore which ones he probably memorized for playing.
Here's a link to the text of Foster's 1995 Shakespeare Newsletter
article, which summarizes his findings:
http://www.clark.net/tross/ws/shaxicon.html

Dave Knauer