Authorship attribution of Shakespeare’s works using the bigram method
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33910/2687-1262-2025-7-4-368-378Keywords:
Shakespeare, bigram method, textology, mathematical methods, authorship attribution, two-letter combinations, literary analysisAbstract
This article investigates the authorship of Shakespeare’s works using the mathematical method of bigrams. By analyzing frequencies of two-letter combinations, the study statistically tests the hypothesis of a single author for the plays traditionally attributed to Shakespeare, determining how close these texts are to the author’s reference distributions. A comparative analysis covers 36 plays by Shakespeare, alongside two works of disputed authorship, Titus Andronicus and The Reign of King Edward III. It is demonstrated that all the studied plays share a statistically significant similarity with Shakespeare’s reference distribution. The results indicate that alternative candidates for authorship (Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd) are statistically less likely. These findings confirm the hypothesis of a single author for most of Shakespeare’s plays.
References
СПИСОК ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ
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Elliott, W. E., Valenza, R. J. (1996) And The There Were None: Winnowing the Shakespeare Claimants. Computers and the Humanities, vol. 30, pp. 191–245. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00055107
Goldberger, A. L., Yang, C. C. A., Peng, C. K. (2004) The Marlowe-Shakespeare Authorship Debate: Approaching an Old Problem with New Methods. [Online]. Available at: http://www.psynetresearch.org/uploads/7/5/8/1/7581337/hoffman_essay.pdf (accessed 14.12.2025).
Marlowe, C. (2000) The Plays. Ware: Wordsworth, 560 p.
Merriam, Th. (1999) Influence Alone? Reflections on the Newly Canonized Edward III. Notes and Queries, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 200–206. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nq/46.2.200
Oesterberg, V. (1929) The “Countess Scenes” of Edward III. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, no. 65, pp. 49–91.
Sams, E. (1998) Shakespeare’s Edward III. New Haven: Yale University
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Thomas, K. (1959) The Spanish Tragedy. London: Methuen, 153 p.
Voronina, M. Yu., Kislitsyn, A. A., Orlov, Yu. N. (2023) Algorithm to correct the bigram method to identify an author’s text. Mathematical Models and Computer Simulations, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 245–254. https://doi.org/10.1134/S2070048223020175
REFERENCES
Elliott, W. E., Valenza, R. J. (1996) And The There Were None: Winnowing the Shakespeare Claimants. Computers and the Humanities, vol. 30, pp. 191–245. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00055107 (In English)
Goldberger, A. L., Yang, C. C. A., Peng, C. K. (2004) The Marlowe-Shakespeare Authorship Debate: Approaching an Old Problem with New Methods. [Online]. Available at: http://www.psynetresearch.org/uploads/7/5/8/1/7581337/hoffman_essay.pdf (accessed 14.12.2025). (In English)
Marlowe, C. (2000) The Plays. Ware: Wordsworth Publ., 560 p. (In English)
Merriam, Th. (1999) Influence Alone? Reflections on the Newly Canonized Edward III. Notes and Queries, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 200–206. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nq/46.2.200 (In English)
Oesterberg, V. (1929) The “Countess Scenes” of Edward III. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, no. 65, pp. 49–91. (In English)
Orlov, Yu. N., Osminin, K. P. (2012) Metody statisticheskogo analiza literaturnykh tekstov [Methods of Statistical Analysis of Literary Texts]. Moscow: URSS Publ.; LIBROKOM Publ., 312 p.(In Russian)
Sams, E. (1998) Shakespeare’s Edward III. New Haven: Yale University Press, 242 p. (In English)
Slater, E. (1988) The Problem of The Reign of King Edward III: A Statistical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 288 p. (In English)
Tarlinskaya, M. (2006) Kto napisal “Eduarda Tret’ego” [Who Wrote “Edward the Third”]. In: Stikh, yazyk, poeziya: pamyati M. L. Gasparova [Verse, Language, Poetry: In Memory of M. L. Gasparov]. Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities Publ., pp. 601–613. (In Russian)
Thomas, K. (1959) The Spanish Tragedy. London: Methuen, 153 p. (In English)
Voronina, M. Yu., Kislitsyn, A. A., Orlov, Yu. N. (2023) Algorithm to correct the bigram method to identify an author’s text. Mathematical Models and Computer Simulations, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 245–254. https://doi.org/10.1134/S2070048223020175 (In English)
Voronina, M. Yu., Orlov, Yu. N. (2022) Opredelenie avtora teksta metodom segmentatsii [Identification of the author of the text by segmentation method]. Komp’yuternye issledovaniya i modelirovanie — Computer Research and Modeling, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 1199–1210. https://doi.org/10.20537/2076-7633-2022-14-5-1199-1210 (In Russian)
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