William Shakespeare: Computer Program Proves The Bard Didn't Work Alone

Scholars have long argued over whether William Shakespeare worked alone, collaborated, or even authored some of the works attributed to him.

Thanks to a computer program designed to detect plagiarism, researchers at the University of London claim they can put an end to the debate and prove that the Bard wrote at least one play, The Reign of King Edward III, in collaboration with playwright Thomas Kyd.

Sir Brian Vickers, the professor who led the research, used a software called Pl@giarism that was developed to catch cheating students. Using the program, Vickers compared the writing in Edward III with other plays from the same period.

Vickers found that the majority of the play fits Kyd's style, rather than Shakespeare's, the Times explains:

The Shakespeare matches came from four scenes, about 40 per cent of the play. The remaining scenes had about 200 matches with works by Kyd, best known for The Spanish Tragedy, a play known to have influenced Shakespeare, indicating that he wrote the other 60 per cent of the play.

As Switched observes, the finding is likely to ruffle feathers in academia as it gives scholars reason to rethink Shakespeare as a "lonely, independent author."

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Comments

[MarcusAB]

For the #1 site on the Marlowe-as­-Shakespea­re theory, please visit
http://www.marlowe-shakespeare.blogspot.com

As the New York Times recently wrote, Christopher Marlowe is back!!!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/21/arts/21WREN.html

And according to the Boston Globe, Marlovians are the coolest:
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2009/09/25/the_shakespeare_truthers/

Btw, Kyd and Marlowe were quite close . . . it was Kyd, after all, under the strain of torture, who gave up Marlowe to the authorities.

Christopher Marlowe . . . the only Elizabethan dramatist who could write on a Shakespearean level . .

[MAragon]

I've long harbored the suspicion that there are collaborative aspects to the plays - Shakespeare handling some, perhaps even acting as editor in general unifying the works into something cohesive and people like the Earl of Oxford (see Pelonius speech to Hamlet) contributing other pieces. And those two were acquainted.

[raven119]

If 60 percent is Kyd, who'd they compare the other 40 percent to? Shakespeare? But that assumes that he wrote any play at all. Everyone knows that Shakespeare was not a Bard, but a beard for Marlowe, de Vere, Bacon or Elizabeth I , all of whom wrote Shakespeare's plays depending on which theory you choose.

[Erzsebet Gilbert]

With an author as canonical and mystified as Shakespeare, it's naturally fascinating to look at any discoveries or speculations about the man as-he-was. But this story (about stories) is loaded with further questions - not necessarily about the playwright, but about the way we look at literature itself. I'm startled by a computer program operating on algorithms to unravel, strip bare, authenticate or falsify authorship. As a reader and writer, it simply leads me to wonder to what degree an author's work can be dissected; what is style? Fundamentally, I suppose, it's all an arrangement of information, but I don't believe that's all. Isn't there something to be said about the way that information and the reader's own living, creative, intellectual participation with it somehow intertwine to engender a book's effect? Whoever the "true" author might be, the fact remains that over 400 years innumerable strata of meaning have been glimpsed in Shakespeare's work, seen through a different individual or social or philosophical lens. I don't know that any entity, human or electronic or ghostly (didn't Hamlet see one?) can entirely fathom the literary experience.
I'll end with an excerpt from Proust (unless somebody detects otherwise!): "style is not even a matter of technique...it’s a quality of vision, the revelation of the particular universe that each of us sees and that no one else sees. The pleasure an artist offers us is to convey another universe to us."

[sammyscout]

Can we run Palin's book through this program.

Did she write her name at least?

[ChrisRose]

Here's hint: http://www.baconlinks.com/VVILL/Psalm46.html

[saxonkane]

This "discovery" is not a big deal, and it will not "shock" any academics. Anyone who knows anything about Shakespeare already knows that he collaborated on works. Henry VIII & Two Gentlemen of Verona were written with John Fletcher. Thomas Middleton probably wrote parts of Macbeth. Hamlet was probably based on a lost play of the same name by Thomas Kyd. Shakespeare may have contributed to the obscure "Sir Thomas More" with possibly 4+ other writers. And of course, the very process of playwriting is collaborative -- things change in performance and for publication. The only real "news" here is that Shakespeare probably did work on Edward III -- a play that some think he didn't have anything to do with.

[saxonkane]

Two Noble Kinsmen, I mean.

[TRex86]

What fun to stray from the horrors of Republican misbehavior and chat about some great writing whoever did it, collaboratively or individually. Giving a look at those wonderful works might even inform today's conflicts as not altogether different from the tiresome quarreling across the millennia so characteristic of homo sapiens.

[NHBill]

Here. Here.
What does it matter who wrote them? The fog of this early part of our written history did not get the story straight. We will never truly know how many were involved in writing mankind's finest literature.
"The play's the thing!"

[Gasparilla]

Typical theory. It couldn't have been Will who wrote those plays. He was so common. It had to be Lord Beaverton of South Hampshire on Tingsby who faked his death at the age of fifteen and lived in a tower on the family estate and signaled Will once a week to come pick up the latest script. How am I doing?

[DeeDubya]

He had 1,000 typing monkeys.

[ChrisRose]

make that Psalm 46!

[AgentMacGyver]

lol

[saxonkane]

Um... no. Absolutely not. This is unbelievably stupid. One, the KJV was translated by dozens of people, and at least 8 were working on the Psalms. Were they all "Shakespeare"? Or did the other 7 just say, "Ok Joe, you can sneak in your little nickname here." Two, why would they wait until 1611 to make this little joke, considering Shakespeare's works had been performed for 2 decades by that time? And Three, no one, NO ONE during Shakespeare's time ever questioned that he existed, worked in the theatre, and wrote plays and sonnets.

[ChrisRose]

@saxonkane: it is not "stupid". certainly not "unbelievably" so.

Shakespeare had nothing to do with the KJV, yet his entire name is coded in Psalm 46. that is a fact. the question becomes why? and by whom?

when you think about it, it's mystery of Shakespearean proportions. I happen to know the answer, but I will not cast my pearls of wisdom. do your own research.

[ChrisRose]

Shakespeare was a psuedonym used to disguise the true author of the plays and sonnets.

the name William Shakespeare is cryptically hidden in Psalm 42 of the King James version of the bible. count 42 words from the begginning and 42 from the end of the Psalm.

Find out who King James commissioned to revise the bible and you will find your Shakespeare.

[Cycadeoidea]

Sounds like a job for a Symbologist.

[Shamrocky]

Yes. Somebody get Robert Langdon on the phone.

[rue]

As a man of the theater, I doubt that Shakespeare was a lonely author. Furthermore, the performing arts foster a collaborative environment.

[AgentMacGyver]

"Edward III" isn't even included in most editions. The curious have to buy it separately. Disappointing and silly article.

[saxonkane]

It's in the Riverside edition of the complete works.

[Cycadeoidea]

Give William his due. Just as the ancient Egyptians didn't need alien help building the pyramids, individuals are capable of extraordinary feats.

[Jimboy17]

Yes, but none of them built a pyramid by themselves. The article just suggests he had help on one play from a fellow playwright, not an alien. This myth of the self-made man is just galling, and it is a cancerous hold over from the great lies of the Enlightenment. No man is an island.

[Cycadeoidea]

Well said. I thought maybe my analogy was DOA as soon as I posted it. ;-)