Plagiarism Software Discovers New Shakespeare Play

Or so that’s the claim of Brian Vickers, a professor at the Institute of English Studies at the University of London. According to a short piece in The New York Times, a software package called Pl@giarism, usually used to detect cheating students, demonstrates that “The Reign of King Edward III,” a play published anonymously in 1596, has elements of Shakespeare’s linguistic fingerprint. In short, phrases used in the play match phrases found in earlier Shakespeare plays at least 200 times. Interestingly, the software also identifies phrases matching the linguistic fingerprint of another playwright, Thomas Kyd, suggesting that Shakespeare didn’t write the Edward play (or other plays?) alone. The Times of London has more on these new claims.

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