The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0862 Friday, 29 September 2006
[1] From: Jim Carroll <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 28 Sep 2006 12:09:26 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0853 Once More
[2] From: David Kathman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 28 Sep 2006 11:44:34 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0853 Once More
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jim Carroll <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 28 Sep 2006 12:09:26 -0400
Subject: 17.0853 Once More
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0853 Once More
<>"I have now proven...."
Sorry your highness, I don't believe you. I wish English department types
would limit the use of the word "proof" to those things which can be
deduced from incontrovertible axioms. And isn't this the same cast of
characters that gave a Ph.D. to someone in Oxfordian studies?
Jim Carroll
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Kathman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 28 Sep 2006 11:44:34 -0500
Subject: 17.0853 Once More
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0853 Once More
Al Magary wrote:
>Computerized Analysis Helps Researchers Define Shakespeare's Work Using
'Literary >Fingerprint'
>PhysOrg.com (from University of Massachusetts-Amherst), September 27,
2006
>http://www.physorg.com/news78593028.html
>
>A team of researchers that includes scholars from the University of
Massachusetts
>Amherst is using computerized analysis of the writing of William
Shakespeare to
>dispel lingering doubts about his authorship of many works and to trace
the outlines
>of his total body of compositions.
[snip]
I was one of a couple dozen or so people who attended a presentation by
Arthur Kinney, Hugh Craig, and their team this past July at the World
Shakespeare Congress in Brisbane, Australia. From what I heard there, it
sounds like they're doing some very interesting and potentially valuable
work, but this press release makes me extremely leery with its talk of
having "proved" Shakespeare's authorship or non-authorship of various
works. The audience at the presentation had some sharp questions for some
of the participants, which is as it should be. I'm probably more open to
computer-assisted authorship studies than many people in the field, but I
recognize that such studies are only one kind of evidence, and must be
considered alongside other, more traditional types of evidence.
Ultimately, such questions of attribution are decided by the broader
community of Shakespeareans, and the type of excessively confident
rhetoric used in this press release is likely to turn off many people who
are already inclined to look skeptically on any kind of computer-aided
literary study.
Dave Kathman
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