How much of Shakespeare's work was really his own? And how much was he influenced by other writers? Literature experts said computers will yield the answers to these age-old questions.Associate Professor Hugh Craig of the University of Newcastle in Australia and Arthur Kinney of the University of Massachusetts in the United States are about to spend two years analyzing the Bard's work using a method called "computational stylistics." This involves using a computer to analyze large slabs of different texts to look for similarities or differences in the way words like "and," "the" and "but" are used. Craig, who is director of the university's Center for Literary and Linguistic Computing, said researchers could work out who wrote mystery texts by comparing patterns of word use with patterns in texts of known authorship. He said the method depended on comparing patterns of at least 30 common words. "You otherwise hardly notice such words but with a computer you can detect patterns of usage and they become important," he told ABC Science Online. "You find that individuals have their own kind of profile." The most straightforward problem that Craig and Kinney will try and solve is whether certain plays — such as Edward III — were written by Shakespeare or not. Another problem is the question of who wrote what in two plays said to be collaborations between Shakespeare and John Fletcher — Henry the VIII and The Two Nobel Kinsmen. For this, the researchers will compare the text of half a dozen plays of the time believed to have been written by Shakespeare and some texts known to have been written by Fletcher.
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