The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0292 Friday, 7 April 2006
[1] From: Martin Mueller <
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Date: Wednesday, 5 Apr 2006 15:06:39 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0281 WordHoard
[2] From: Stan Kozikowski <
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Date: Thursday, 06 Apr 2006 09:21:50 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0281 WordHoard
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Mueller <
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Date: Wednesday, 5 Apr 2006 15:06:39 -0500
Subject: 17.0281 WordHoard
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0281 WordHoard
It's a nice question what kind of critically significant information one
should expect from frequency-based analysis. The classic study remains
J. F. Burrows' "Computation into criticism: a study of Jane Austen's
novels and an experiment in method" (Oxford, 1987). Burrows used
relatively fancy math to ask to what extent Austen's speakers differ in
their use of the very common 'little' or function words in the language
and to what extent the characters of those speakers are reflected in or
shaped by the distribution of very common words.
There are two ways of looking at the results. If you ask whether Burrows
tells you anything about Jane Austen's characters that you didn't 'know'
before the answer is probably 'no'. If you ask whether he tells you
anything about what goes into the making of effects that competent
readers have always responded to the answer is probably 'quite a lot.'
Most people hate formal statistics, but wherever people are competent
in any area, they are excellent informal statisticians, tacitly
figuring the odds and responding to differences in distribution in
nuanced and exquisite ways. If that is the case, you should never or
rarely expect a statistician to produce results that run against widely
shared perceptions. If a statistician told you that contrary to common
opinion people with a cold do not suffer from or complain about stuffy
or runny noses you will tell him to go away. The first statistician to
nail down the positive association of lung cancer with smoking probably
ran into a lot of responses of the kind "I could have told you that."
There are areas of life where people's intuitive statistics are
notoriously unreliable. Risk assessment is one of them. The intuitions
of experienced readers do not fall in that category, and the utility of
frequency based analysis is probably quite modest, but useful
nonetheless. It lets you describe in the language of numbers, very
limited, but within their domain quite precise, what you have grasped
already in a vaguer sense. And it happens quite often that
frequency-based comparisons draw your attention to resemblances that you
had not noticed before and that are worth following up.
If you ask who speaks the most words in the Comedy of Errors, the answer
is "Adriana." In starting a discussion of that play you could do a lot
worse than reflect on the fact that the wife who is treated with
undisguised contempt in Plautus' source play is the protagonist of
Shakespeare's comedy. It's a simple observation, but it takes you quite
a ways.
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Stan Kozikowski <
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Date: Thursday, 06 Apr 2006 09:21:50 -0400
Subject: 17.0281 WordHoard
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0281 WordHoard
Steve Urkowitz <
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>Phillip Weller suggests that if the frequent use of SIR and LORD are
>parts of addresses in plays then the finding is not particularly
important.
>I would like to suggest instead that such a finding should lead us to pay
>more attention to such "indicative" or deictic markers in Shakespearean
>dialog.
>
>Pointing to or calling out to people and things seems an almost
obsessive
>verbal function in the dialogue. "Ye powers," and "O Nature" and that
>run-of-the-mill "my Lord" encourage vigorous verbal and physical actions
>of pointing and looking. If I may suggest further, I think it is just
this
>dense web of actions that makes Shakespeare so appealing to actors and
>audiences. Doing Shakespeare means that you're always doing, acting,
>involving your own fictional persona with the fictions of those others
>on stage. It's called PLAYING.
>
>If you find yourself snoozing at a performance, just check to see if the
>actors are using those "addresses" as vocal springboards or instead are
>sliding past them. And I wonder if there's a countable difference between
>Shakespeare's usage and those of those guys who Gary Taylor so
>champions? But that's another post to puzzle through ....
Lords all and some,
Steve, typically, remains much adoing about noting (sans pun, of course,
on "nothing")
Ergo, nota bene Hamlet's very telling, highly suggestive, and curiously
repeated "sir"'s to Osric.
These would be, indeed , an actor's doings, actings, and playings--to
which I'd add "livings."
Much, very much--is going on here, for sure, lords, lads, and ladies.
Stan Kozikowski
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