Evans, M orcid.org/0000-0002-0001-6577 and Hogarth, A (2021) Stylistic palimpsests: Computational stylistic perspectives on precursory authorship in Aphra Behn’s drama. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 36 (1). pp. 64-86. ISSN 2055-7671
Abstract
Computational stylistics has developed various methods for investigating and attributing authorship of collaborative literary texts. This article investigates ‘precursory authorship’ (Love, 2002): that is, the authorial traces of a source text that inform—to a greater or lesser degree—a subsequent literary output, in order to establish its relevance for our approach to and understanding of the linguistic properties of literary style. Precursory authorship and derivative adaptations are common features of early modern English drama, and the study focusses on two case studies relating to the plays of Restoration playwright, Aphra Behn (c. 1640–89). Using a combination of quantitative methods (Rolling Delta (RD), principal components analysis (PCA), Delta, and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis), the investigation highlights the presence of precursory authorial style in Behn’s The Rover and an anonymous work associated with Behn, The Counterfeit Bridegroom. The results suggest that precursory authorial style is identifiable in both cases, not only through a similarity with the source text but, to a lesser degree, other texts by the precursory author as well. The anonymous play yields complex and non-confirmatory evidence for Behn’s authorship. Methodologically, RD is most sensitive to precursory collaboration. Collectively, the findings highlight the importance of stylistic factors when describing and interpreting literary linguistic quantitative data: precursory authorial style is another facet that intersects with properties such as time period and genre. The article urges a more critical and theoretically informed view of authorially aligned linguistic style.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of EADH. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of English (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 16 Feb 2023 17:22 |
Last Modified: | 16 Feb 2023 17:22 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/llc/fqz085 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:196059 |