SHAXICAN Perl scripts working on Shakespeare's language
The SHAXICAN project takes its name from the SHAXICON database developed by
Donald Foster and used by him to attribute the poem 'A Funeral Elegy
for William Peter' to William Shakespeare and to suggest which roles Shakespeare
might have played, among other things.
SHAXICON ('the idea') was begun as an experiment in programming by Gabriel Egan and
published on his website.
The idea and the scripts were taken up and extensively
refined ('Roths' refinements') by Steve Roth, to whom is owed most of the credit for the work
here.
Most recently, Matt Steggle made the excellent suggestion ('Cibber') that
one of Foster's uses for SHAXICON (deducing which roles Shakespeare played based
on the assumption that an actor-dramatist's writing would be influenced by
the rare words in the part he'd most recently acted) could be tested for the
work of actor-dramatists other than Shakespeare. Matt and Steve's collaborated
to test the principle for the work of Colley Cibber.
Gabriel
Egan . com
