Digital Shakespeare
Digital Shakespeare explores how modern technology can enrich Shakespearean scholarship. This project applies digital humanities methods – from AI-driven text analysis to network visualization – to Shakespeare’s plays. By classifying early modern texts and mapping character interactions, it uncovers patterns and relationships not evident through traditional study. The goal is to provide fresh insights into Shakespeare’s works and demonstrate how computational tools can deepen our understanding of literary history.
This study utilizes network analysis to explore structural unity in Renaissance plays, tracing the influence of medieval touring companies on 16th-century dramatic structures. Employing digital humanities methodologies, the research applies community detection algorithms and silhouette scores to analyziry bipartite or multipartite structures across 38 Shakespearean plays. These touring companies, characterized by actors taking on multiple roles, left an enduring imprint on the narrative and character dynamics within Renaissance drama. The study investigates how logistical and theatrical practices influenced the dramatic transformation from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. Community detection algorithms identify clusters of frequently interacting characters, revealing underlying narrative frameworks. Silhouette scores quantitatively assess the distinctness of these clusters, illuminating the residual dualistic nature of Renaissance drama, potentially inherited from medieval traditions. Additionally, degree centrality measures the influence of central characters on narrative unity, helping to ascertain whether the play's structure revolves around a single protagonist or features a more dispersed model with multiple focal points. While this integration of network theory and literary analysis seeks to understand the interplay between character relationships and narrative structures, the reliance on quantitative methods can oversimplify complex literary details. This experimental approach underscores the need for further research across a broader spectrum of medieval and Renaissance plays and the development of refined computational methods for literary studies, thus broadening the scope and depth of digital humanities in understanding historical narratives.
Keywords: Shakespeare, Character Network Analysis, Digital Humanities, Mediality, Dramatic Structure, Silhouette Score
In the printed texts of early modern plays, scholars have observed a number of lines bracketed by a set of duplicate lines. In 1918, J. Dover Wilson called this type of textual error a “repetition bracket” and argued that it is evidence for the insertion of additional text. In 1930, W. W. Greg adduced pieces of evidence in early modern playhouse manuscripts in support of Wilson’s addition (or “plus”) hypothesis, but he also proposed an omission (or “minus”) hypothesis. However, Greg’s footnoted reference to a single instance in The Second Maiden’s Tragedy was his sole empirical evidence for the latter hypothesis. In this article, I examine Greg’s evidence and review fifty-one extant early modern playhouse manuscripts to argue that Greg’s omission hypothesis is untenable. Duplications in manuscripts are associated with false starts, marginal additions, or text on addition leaves. Based on thorough study of these manuscripts, I conclude that repetition brackets in early printings are a strong sign of revision and not omission. Included in an appendix is a list of all omission and addition markings in extant manuscripts.
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The relationship between Shakespeare’s First Folio and early printings, published in his lifetime, has been a matter of dispute for centuries. A computer program that I have developed visualizes the fluctuating quality of textual correspondences between Folio texts, Henry the Sixth, Part Two and Three, and texts that have been suspected as memorial reconstructions of the Folio, The First Part of the Contention and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York. The memorial reconstruction hypothesis assumes increased similarity between the two texts when an alleged actor–reporter is on the stage or speaking and vice versa. The visualization of similarity between two texts, based on the Dice similarity metric, does not show a strong association between the fluctuation of similarity and actor–reporter factors, which challenges the memorial reconstruction hypothesis on statistical grounds. In addition, the distribution of line-by-line similarity scores suggests scene division is a considerable explanatory factor for fluctuating similarity, which is not inexplicable, considering the practice of collaborative writing in the early modern playhouse.
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Since 1928, The First Part of the Contention and Richard Duke of York (printed separately in the 1590s) have been regarded as memorial reconstructions of two texts in the Folio edition of Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (printed in 1623), where they are instead identified as Henry the Sixth, Part Two and Henry the Sixth, Part Three. Although recent scholarship has questioned the validity of the memorial reconstruction hypothesis, demonstrating aesthetic differences between the “bad quartos” and the Folio as a sign of distinctive authorial engagements, most reference works and critical editions of the Henry VI plays accept a variety of textual evidence in support of the memorial reconstruction hypothesis. The hypothesis assumes that mangled historical details should be attributed not to a playwright who consulted chronicle sources but to non-authorial agents who trusted their memory when reconstructing the Folio version. This article aims to challenge textual evidence for the memorial reconstruction hypothesis adduced by Peter Alexander and recent textual scholars by discrediting the supporting textual evidence, to argue that demonstrable verbal links between the suspect texts and chronicle sources in several passages unique to Contention or Duke of York substantiate the authorial consultation of chronicle sources.