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Tracking Social Networking In Shakespeare Plays
An anonymous reader writes "By feeding PieSpy (an IRC bot used to visualise social networks) with the entire texts of Shakespeare plays, it became possible to produce drawings of the social networks present in his plays - it is now possible to visualize the relationships between the characters in his works, and see Shakespeare in an entirely new light."
Not sure that's true. When I did English & English Lit. at school, I hated it. With a passion.
I read as little as possible, thought all the books must be rubbish.
Now I'm older, and I've reread some of the books we did (1984, Of Mice & Men, Royal Hunt of the Sun, various sharespeare, Chrysalids, Farenheit 451 etc).. and I'm finding that they're actually pretty good.
Perhaps you should try it? Get yourself a couple of Shakespeare DVDs (the Brannah ones are quite good), sit back, and enjoy. Then once you know the basis of the story you'll find that the text is rather less opaque.
Enjoy!
Or if you don't have the time to see the full set of DVDs you can try these guys. All 37 plays in 97 minutes and funny as hell.
Google cache
Program
http://www.jibble.org/files/PieSpy-0.2.2.zip
(Original link, only use if mine is down and YOU are going to mirror.)
The network snapshot shown is from the end of Act 4, Scene iv, where Rosencrantz has recently been given the majority of the Rozencrantz/Guildenstern lines, with Guildenstern only having had one line in the previous three scenes (since R&G reappeared in scene 2).
If you read the site, you'll see that weightings are set to decay with time, so if a character is quiet, he/she will fade from the current network.
It's an artefact, but highlights an aspect of the analysis that might not be otherwise obvious.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
Perhaps you should try it? Get yourself a couple of Shakespeare DVDs (the Brannah ones are quite good), sit back, and enjoy. Then once you know the basis of the story you'll find that the text is rather less opaque.
;)
I completely agree with you, but if the grandparent is going to take your advice, he should probably google for "Branagh," so he'll actually find what he's looking for.
I recommend anyone trying to get into Shakespeare start with Branagh's Henry V. It's about beating up on the French (with maybe some minor themes about responsibility and coming of age, but who cares about that when there are swordfights to be had?) And it only clocks in at about 2:30, so you don't need to worry about the Iron Butt Challenge that is the Branagh Hamlet. The production values are high for a Shakespeare movie, so while it looks cheesy to the jaded eye, it's not so cheesy as to be distracting (unlike, say, the Olivier version).
And now, that's either "the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt," or my co-worker is pitching another fit. Damn. I hope I have time to follow this thread.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
It's a chat analysis bot - feed it the actual lines from the play, and it tries to figure out who is talking with whom and generate a network.
There might be a need to format the script specially, but other than that, the data should be the plays, verbatim and unsullied by preconceptions.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
Funny you fention the MPAA. Piracy was rife even in the day of Shakespeare. He was regularly ripped off when 'pirates' would discretely write down the words to the play whilst watching and then open the same play up else where. It is still unclear whether some of the plays are originals or infact copies (usually with errors or missing scenes).
I haven't looked at all of the graphs yet, but I don't think that their algorithm is working correctly.
In the Henry V graph, for example, Canterbury and Pistol should be connected to Henry V.
(Pistol and Henry were actually close friends, but that's from a previous play. Still, they do have one conversation in Henry V).
In general, the plays they're looking at have fairly small graphs. Shakespeare's tragedies are comparatively small productions. If you want to do something useful, graph out the really big histories: Henry IV or Henry VI. Or better yet, take Henry VI parts 1, 2, and 3, along with Richard III, and graph out the entire War of the Roses, according to Shakespeare.
From what I remember, that is a common plot in Shakespeare too.
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Since we're talking about fiction here... How about using this tool to draw the connections amongst characters in the Cryptnomicon/Baroque Cycle series? This guy makes some pretty headspinning connections! It took a little bit for me to realize/remember who was a "papist", who was a "barker" and who was an Anglican, etc etc etc in Quicksilver and what the ramifications were. No need to explain, I have it down but a tool like this to represent these things visually would've been helpful. Actually, he does include some diagrams as to how the characters connect! But it almost seems as if more might've been helpful at times! Snowcrash (one of my faves) was a bit of an easier go!
Quod scripsi, scripsi.