Data Mining Shakespeare

1. Data Mining Shakespeare English 1102: Shakespeare Fall, 2014

2. The History of Henry V William Shakespeare Data Mining Shakespeare

3. The Tragedy of HamletWilliam Shakespeare Data Mining Shakespeare

4. Twelfth Night, Or What You WillWilliam Shakespeare Data Mining Shakespeare

5. Viola, Twelfth Night: Viola's word cloud demonstrates that her view of love is based on building strong relationships and companionship: “give,” “dear,” “heart, “”Olivia,” “sweet.” Data Mining Shakespeare

6. Orsino, Twelfth Night: Data Mining Shakespeare Orsino'sword cloud reveals his fundamental entitlement to Olivia’s love due to his high position: “house,” “lord,” “lady,” “master” Data Mining Shakespeare

7. Hamlet’s corpus: Both visualizations show the patriarchal importance and the close ties between death and fathers. Data Mining Shakespeare

8. The Gravediggers corpus, Hamlet: We think of Hamlet as being the darkest and most profound character. But by comparing the word clouds of Hamlet, Ophelia, and the gravediggers, I was surprised to see that it is the fools that use the darkest language: “drown,” “skull,” “death,” “gallows,” “question,” and “mad.” Data Mining Shakespeare

9. Contemplating the skull: One of the gravediggers’ most common words is “skull.” The mind is so widely discussed in Hamlet: how can an empty head – a skull– convey about the nature of identity? Data Mining Shakespeare

10. “Good Madonna”: In Twelfth Night, the fool used the word “Madonna” 10 times. This could be a reference to the characters’ obsession with sexuality, or could just be a satire about Olivia’s vow of abstinence. Data Mining Shakespeare

11. “Thou,” “Thy,” And “We” in Twelfth Night: The relative frequencies of “thou,” “thy,” and “we” demonstrate something interesting: during the first “we” peak in act 2, Viola actively expresses passion to Olivia, then they separate. The “we” slope falls to its lowest. But in act 5, when all comedies reconcile, the word “you” falls, and “we” rises. Comedy ends in “we.” Data Mining Shakespeare

12. Relative Frequencies of “Viola” and “Sebastian” in Twelfth Night: In Twelfth Night, a shipwreck initially separates twins Viola and Sebastian. Both believe that the other is dead. Relative frequency of their names conveys an interesting relationship between Viola and Sebastian: the initial gap after the shipwreck, with increasingly closer encounters until the end of the play, when they were reunited. This chart parallels the story throughout the play. Data Mining Shakespeare

13. Relative Frequency of “Love” in Hamlet’s entire corpus: Data Mining Shakespeare

14. Relative Frequency of “Love” in the Entire Play and in the character Hamlet’s specific corpus: The word "love" is used 84 times in the play, which led me to analyze Hamlet as a love story. Data Mining Shakespeare

15. Possessives in Twelfth Night: This word web depicts possession in Twelfth Night. Any word ending with a “ ‘s “ is joined by an arrow to the item showing possession. The word web highlights two names of the highest ranking characters in the play: Olivia and Orsino, the power leaders in the play. Data Mining Shakespeare

16. “I am” Orsino: While Orsino's word cloud reveals his belief that he deserves love due to his high position in society: “house, lord, lady, master” Data Mining Shakespeare

17. “Love” and “Lady” in Twelfth Night: This relative frequency graph illustrates that Viola, disguised as a servant, refrains from using the word "love" at the same time as "lady" when addressing her “superior” Olivia; do class differences inhibit the expression of love? Data Mining Shakespeare

18. Olivia in Twelfth Night: Although Olivia has “sworn off men” for seven years when the play begins, her Word Cloud reveals her preoccupation with men (“man,” “sir,” “come” “lord,” Cesario,” “husband,” and especially “Malvolio.” Data Mining Shakespeare

19. “Heaven,” “God,” and “Father” in Hamlet’s speech corpus: Hamlet becomes more confident and ready to accept “heaven” (or death) towards the denouement, at which point he also begins to associate “God” with “father.” Data Mining Shakespeare

20. “poison in the ear”: Hamlet’s corpus: Shakespeare often uses the idea of poison entering our ears and destroying from within, so I decided to plot the frequency of what Hamlet “hears” against what he says he “knows” to depict Hamlet’s internal decay and ultimate death. Data Mining Shakespeare

21. Hamlet Will Not Hamlet “will not” grow, dare, suffer, or escape. Data Mining Shakespeare

22. Voyant’s Bubble visualization of Twelfth Night: The visualization reveals the prominence of the pronoun “I,” which implies a focus on self-centeredness. The characters seem to be preoccupied with fulfilling their own desires and wants. From this perspective, the plot/play seems to be focused on the individual, advanced through first-person directive. Data Mining Shakespeare

23. Voyant’s Links visualization of Twelfth Night: This “Links” visualization shows the tight yet dynamic relationship between “I” and “You” Focus on self and focus on others are contrasting yet codependent, because many characters’ sense of identity depend on the perceptions of others. There is no “I” without “You” as Shakespeare intertwines identity between all the characters… a true web. Data Mining Shakespeare

24. “I know not” All the Twelfth Night characters exhibit the ignorance of “I know not,” which runs rampant through the play (nobody knows what is really going on). Viola exhibits empowerment in her subtle manipulation of others through her disguises, yet she is ignorant of her effect on Orsino and Olivia. Data Mining Shakespeare

25. “I do not” / “I would not” The prominent presence of “not” following most action verbs in the play also suggests that most of the characters are reactionary; the comedy’s plot advances through conflict and tension. Doubt and hesitation color their actions, compromising characters’ personal integrity. Self-actualization involves taking action, yet this visualization shows the prominence of inaction. Data Mining Shakespeare

26. “I do,” “I will,” “I am” Following “I” are active, empowering verbs such as “do,” “will,” and “am”. “Am” in particular is significant in demonstrating a strong sense of self-identity (yet… Viola doesn’t really know who she is). Throughout the play Shakespeare tinkers with the characters’, especially Viola’s, sense of personal identity. Data Mining Shakespeare

27. “Viola” and “House”: Viola uses the word 'house' a total of seven times throughout Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, but when investigating the actual instances in which she uses the word, it becomes readily apparent that she never refers back to having a true place where she belongs in the world. Data Mining Shakespeare

28. “Viola” and “Wife”:  Viola only uses the word 'wife' twice throughout Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (once near the very beginning and end), highlighting her steadfast romantic dedication to Orsino despite her constantly changing identity in the play. Data Mining Shakespeare

29. Viola’s speech corpus: “Cesario,” “gentleman,” “fellow,” or “lady”? Viola’s flexible identity. Data Mining Shakespeare

30. Something Rotten in the state of Denmark: The predominance of “king” and “lord” illustrates that the play is heavily focused on the aristocracy and its culture. If one looks closer, he or she can notice words such as “ghost,” “mad,” and “death.” These words signify that while the setting is in a palace, there are murder, supernatural events, and craziness involved. Data Mining Shakespeare

31. The Socratic Horatio: Informant and the interrogator at the same time. Through Horatio and his questions, the readers can learn much more about the background stories and culture that involves the play Hamlet. Data Mining Shakespeare

32. Love and Death in Hamlet: Hamlet’s love for his father and for Ophelia develop the tragedy by layering it with burning desires and cunning deceptions. The relative frequencies of “death” and “love” illustrate that the tragedy culminates with death and love. Data Mining Shakespeare

33. Hamlet’s volition (“I am,” “I will,” “I would”): Hamlet promises action but “dares not.” Data Mining Shakespeare

34. Inverse Relationship between “knowing” and “thinking”: One of the main themes of Twelfth Night is the disparity between what the characters know versus what others think, as illustrated by the inverse relationship in the graph. Note a major shift at x=6 (Act 3 Scene 1) during Viola’s second visit to Olivia’s house in which she starts to jab at Viola’s guise. Coincidentally, the play ends with the exact same frequency of knowing and thinking . Data Mining Shakespeare

35. Hamletverses Macbeth: Macbeth’s three most frequent words: “blood,” “fear,” and “time” Hamlet’s three most frequent words: “mother,” “good,” and “play” Data Mining Shakespeare

36. King Henry V: Shakespeare’s history, Henry V, tells the story of Henry transitioning from “boy” to “King,” “Captain,” “soldier,” “majesty,” and “man.” Data Mining Shakespeare

37. Verbs in Hamlet: The verbs “come,” “go,” “speak,” “know,” “follow,” “believe,” “see,” “look” and many more reveal the rush of action in Hamlet., a play many think of as lacking action. Data Mining Shakespeare

38. Love and Self in Twelfth Night: For a play seeming to be all about love, the word “love” only occurs 81 times in Twelfth Night. Contrast with “I,” occurring 596 times. The play seems to be about romantic love, with the plot revolving around the tangled love relationships between the main characters, but the emphasis is really on self-love and and discovering true identities. Data Mining Shakespeare

39. The irony of “good” in Hamlet: 107 instances of “good” in this dark tragedy? Many times “good” in “my good friend” is ironic because most of the characters oppose each other. Data Mining Shakespeare

40. Alignment of “heaven” and “heart” in Henry V: Despite Henry’s conflicted inner feelings about the war and his own kingship, “heaven” and “heart” follow the same usage trend line throughout the play. Data Mining Shakespeare

41. Malvolio’s volition in Twelfth Night: “I will…” Malvolio’s speech corpus indicates his plans to woo Lady Olivia, despite their social differences. Data Mining Shakespeare

42. Orsino-Centric Twelfth Night: The software attempts to link characters and locations, illustrating that Orsino tends to intersect with most of the other characters. This is similar to the exercise we attempted in class. The diagram illustrates why Orsino is self-absorbed at the start of the play, everyone and everything reports to and revolves around him. Data Mining Shakespeare

43. Act 5 of Twelfth Night – Orsino shares the spotlight: By Act 5, the play is less Orsino-centric. What this remarkable contrast exemplifies is the character change of Orsino and the equality that is attained by the end of the play through the numerous marriages and disappearance of words like, “lady,” “sir” and “lord,” as shown by the first three graphs. Data Mining Shakespeare

44. “Death” in Hamlet: This is a graph of the frequency of the word “death” in Hamlet. According to the graph, death is an integral part of the tragedy, as opposed to “love” which only appears toward the end. Data Mining Shakespeare

45. “My” in Malvolio’s speech: In Twelfth Night, the words "my" and "I" peak significantly when Malvolio is speaking; this distance reading reveals that despite the play seeming to be about romantic love, the underlying themes of self love and arrogance prevail. Data Mining Shakespeare

46. Viola’s speech corpus: Positive words predominate Viola’s speech, such as “good,” “smile,” “heart,” “love,” and “brother” which reflect her good intentions despite her grief and her use of a false identity. Data Mining Shakespeare

47. Maria’s speech corpus in Twelfth Night: Maria’s speech corpus features more words with negative connotations such as “ass” “devil,” “puritan,” and “yellow stockings” which reflect the many evil schemes she devises throughout Twelfth Night. Data Mining Shakespeare

48. In Fall 2014, Georgia Tech students explored Shakespeare’s plays through close reading, book art, and data-mining. Data-mining reduces and abstracts Shakespeare’s plays in order to step back or “distant read,” often giving a different perspective. Data Mining Shakespeare