"Shakespeare did write Henry VIII"
confirms SERbrainware
Collaboration theory rejected as SER associative
search engine joins academic debate over authorship
of Elizabethan drama
Nottingham, October 2000: An unusual shaft of light was
cast on a long-running literary debate yesterday when analysis
by SER Systems’ (SER’s) intelligent learning engine,
SERbrainware, suggested, more or less conclusively, that Henry
VIII was written solely by William Shakespeare and not the result
of a collaborative effort – usually assumed to be John Fletcher -
a view currently held by many literary experts.
An initial analysis of selected texts from the Bard’s late play has
shown them to have an overall 88% likelihood of being by
Shakespeare, when compared with such established works in
his canon as Richard III, Henry IV Part 1, Macbeth, The
Merchant of Venice and A Winter’s Tale. "Such a high score in
terms of the SERbrainware engine indicates a very strong
probability that Henry VIII was written by Shakespeare alone,"
confirms SER’s head of marketing, Peter Turnbull.
In the case of Henry VIII, 71 pages of pure text were compared
with selected complete works of Shakespeare, Fletcher and
Marlowe previously entered in similar format. The resulting
analysis "overwhelmingly" found the play to be by Shakespeare
alone, with little textural affinity with his claimed co-author.
By way of comparison, the study showed that selected other
contemporary plays are clearly not the work of this most famous
of Elizabethan playwrights. Among those analysed:
John Fletcher – Bonduca at 10%;
Christopher Marlowe – Doctor Faustus and
Tambourlaine both rated at 0%;
Benjamin Jonson – Volpone at 0%;
Thomas Dekker - The Roaring Girl at 16%;
John Webster – The Duchess of Malfi at 4%.
Using SERbrainware in this way, global market-leading software
developer of knowledge management and eBusiness automation
solutions, SER, has entered a debate which has raged for more
than a century, since James Spedding first raised doubts
concerning the play’s authorship in 1850.
Though there is currently much academic support for the view
that Henry VIII was in fact a collaborative effort with fellow
Elizabethan playwright, John Fletcher, John Margeson, emeritus
professor of English at the University of Toronto, believes that,
"the authorship question is unlikely to be settled to everyone’s
satisfaction unless startling new external evidence is uncovered
at some future date."
Associative searching
A broad but random sample of each of the selected plays was
put into the search engine in pure text format and compared with
six complete Shakespeare and Marlowe plays (and, in the case
of Henry VIII, with Fletcher). In each case it then determined the
likelihood that the work was by any of these major playwrights.
SERbrainware is SER’s award winning neural network based
intelligent learning engine, which reads, analyses and acts on
text with human-like intelligence, using a patented neural network
algorithm to bring unprecedented speed and accuracy to
eBusiness automation. It heralds a new generation of
applications that render complex rules based systems virtually
obsolete.
"Critically, SERbrainware learns by example," points out
Turnbull. "It analyses both structured and unstructured text from
any media type and is trained by people who show it how they
would read and make decisions on the basis of available
information."
In classification mode, a small sample is used to teach the
engine how to categorise – it is then able to classify large
quantities of new text documents into the same categories. In its
search mode SERbrainware takes the word patterns in a small
sample of documents – representative of the required content –
and then analyses, finds and returns documents with similar
meanings.
All this is achieved with unprecedented speed. "Following the
inputting of raw text examples of each play, the text of Henry VIII
was read, understood and classified in less than five minutes,"
he confirms.
Leveraging corporate know-how
"The essence of SERbrainware is that it automates the process
of dealing with the daily flood of new information from websites,
e-mail, fax traditional mail and even voice," says Ian Williamson,
VP Europe, SER. "It classifies and sorts information intelligently
in ways that were previously only possible if individuals read it."
The commercial applications of SERbrainware are both broad
and far-reaching. At its simplest it can have a dramatic impact in
a mailroom environment where large volumes of documents
have to be sorted and categorised. In addition, it is particularly
relevant where high volume repetitive tasks require highly skilled
input, for example patent administration or processing medical
insurance claims, freeing up time and expertise for more
value-added activities.
"SER’s contribution to this literary controversy will itself no doubt
be the subject of some debate," believes Williamson. "What is
beyond doubt however is that by leveraging existing corporate
know-how in this way, SERbrainware will increase the overall
clockspeed of an organisation.
"The result is that for the first time, clients will be able to conduct
eBusiness at internet speed – a true eRevolution."
confirms SERbrainware
Collaboration theory rejected as SER associative
search engine joins academic debate over authorship
of Elizabethan drama
Nottingham, October 2000: An unusual shaft of light was
cast on a long-running literary debate yesterday when analysis
by SER Systems’ (SER’s) intelligent learning engine,
SERbrainware, suggested, more or less conclusively, that Henry
VIII was written solely by William Shakespeare and not the result
of a collaborative effort – usually assumed to be John Fletcher -
a view currently held by many literary experts.
An initial analysis of selected texts from the Bard’s late play has
shown them to have an overall 88% likelihood of being by
Shakespeare, when compared with such established works in
his canon as Richard III, Henry IV Part 1, Macbeth, The
Merchant of Venice and A Winter’s Tale. "Such a high score in
terms of the SERbrainware engine indicates a very strong
probability that Henry VIII was written by Shakespeare alone,"
confirms SER’s head of marketing, Peter Turnbull.
In the case of Henry VIII, 71 pages of pure text were compared
with selected complete works of Shakespeare, Fletcher and
Marlowe previously entered in similar format. The resulting
analysis "overwhelmingly" found the play to be by Shakespeare
alone, with little textural affinity with his claimed co-author.
By way of comparison, the study showed that selected other
contemporary plays are clearly not the work of this most famous
of Elizabethan playwrights. Among those analysed:
John Fletcher – Bonduca at 10%;
Christopher Marlowe – Doctor Faustus and
Tambourlaine both rated at 0%;
Benjamin Jonson – Volpone at 0%;
Thomas Dekker - The Roaring Girl at 16%;
John Webster – The Duchess of Malfi at 4%.
Using SERbrainware in this way, global market-leading software
developer of knowledge management and eBusiness automation
solutions, SER, has entered a debate which has raged for more
than a century, since James Spedding first raised doubts
concerning the play’s authorship in 1850.
Though there is currently much academic support for the view
that Henry VIII was in fact a collaborative effort with fellow
Elizabethan playwright, John Fletcher, John Margeson, emeritus
professor of English at the University of Toronto, believes that,
"the authorship question is unlikely to be settled to everyone’s
satisfaction unless startling new external evidence is uncovered
at some future date."
Associative searching
A broad but random sample of each of the selected plays was
put into the search engine in pure text format and compared with
six complete Shakespeare and Marlowe plays (and, in the case
of Henry VIII, with Fletcher). In each case it then determined the
likelihood that the work was by any of these major playwrights.
SERbrainware is SER’s award winning neural network based
intelligent learning engine, which reads, analyses and acts on
text with human-like intelligence, using a patented neural network
algorithm to bring unprecedented speed and accuracy to
eBusiness automation. It heralds a new generation of
applications that render complex rules based systems virtually
obsolete.
"Critically, SERbrainware learns by example," points out
Turnbull. "It analyses both structured and unstructured text from
any media type and is trained by people who show it how they
would read and make decisions on the basis of available
information."
In classification mode, a small sample is used to teach the
engine how to categorise – it is then able to classify large
quantities of new text documents into the same categories. In its
search mode SERbrainware takes the word patterns in a small
sample of documents – representative of the required content –
and then analyses, finds and returns documents with similar
meanings.
All this is achieved with unprecedented speed. "Following the
inputting of raw text examples of each play, the text of Henry VIII
was read, understood and classified in less than five minutes,"
he confirms.
Leveraging corporate know-how
"The essence of SERbrainware is that it automates the process
of dealing with the daily flood of new information from websites,
e-mail, fax traditional mail and even voice," says Ian Williamson,
VP Europe, SER. "It classifies and sorts information intelligently
in ways that were previously only possible if individuals read it."
The commercial applications of SERbrainware are both broad
and far-reaching. At its simplest it can have a dramatic impact in
a mailroom environment where large volumes of documents
have to be sorted and categorised. In addition, it is particularly
relevant where high volume repetitive tasks require highly skilled
input, for example patent administration or processing medical
insurance claims, freeing up time and expertise for more
value-added activities.
"SER’s contribution to this literary controversy will itself no doubt
be the subject of some debate," believes Williamson. "What is
beyond doubt however is that by leveraging existing corporate
know-how in this way, SERbrainware will increase the overall
clockspeed of an organisation.
"The result is that for the first time, clients will be able to conduct
eBusiness at internet speed – a true eRevolution."
