Did Shakespeare write his plays? - Natalya St. Clair and Aaron Williams

翻译人员: Clara Li 校对人员: Gabriella Hu

"Some are born great,

"有些人的伟大是天生的

some achieve greatness,

有些人成就伟大

and others have greatness thrust upon them", quoth William Shakespeare.

而有些人的伟大则是强加给他们的” ——威廉姆斯莎士比亚

Or did he?

这句话真的是他写的吗？

Some people question whether Shakespeare really wrote the works that bear his name,

有些人质疑莎士比亚著作署名的真实性

or whether he even existed at all.

甚至质疑他是否真的存在过

They speculate that Shakespeare was a pseudonym for another writer,

他们认为莎士比亚只是某个作者的化名

or a group of writers.

或者是一组作者的化名而已

可能用这个化名的人选包括

Proposed candidates for the real Shakespeare

include other famous playwrights, politicians and even some prominent women.

其他戏剧名人，政治家， 甚至是有影响力的女人

Could it be true that the greatest writer in the English language

难道英国文学史上最著名的作家

was as fictional as his plays?

和他的作品一样，是凭空创造出来的吗？

Most Shakespeare scholars dismiss these theories

很多莎士比亚的研究人员反对“无莎论”

based on historical and biographical evidence.

因为他的生平有迹可循

But there is another way to test whether Shakespeare's famous lines

但有另外一种方法

能论证他的名句， 是否是其他作家的成果

were actually written by someone else.

Linguistics, the study of language,

语言学，顾名思义

can tell us a great deal about the way we speak and write

能通过句法，语法，语义，用词

by examining syntax, grammar, semantics and vocabulary.

解析我们说话写作的程式和习惯

And in the late 1800s,

在19世纪后期

a Polish philosopher named Wincenty Lutosławski

一位名叫Wincenty Lutoslawski的波兰哲学家

完善了文体学这一方法

formalized a method known as stylometry,

applying this knowledge to investigate questions of literary authorship.

并用此方法排查文学作者的真实性

文体学怎么用呢？

So how does stylometry work?

理论上，每一个作者的风格都有自己的独特性

The idea is that each writer's style has certain characteristics

that remain fairly uniform among individual works.

与其他作家大不相同

Examples of characteristics include average sentence length,

独特性包括

句长，排字

the arrangement of words,

and even the number of occurrences of a particular word.

甚至是某个单词出现的频率

Let's look at use of the word thee and visualize it as a dimension, or axis.

让我们以“thee” 【古英文的 “you”】为例， 把它当成一个纵轴

Each of Shakespeare's works can be placed on that axis,

每篇作品，都可以根据这个词出现的数量

like a data point, based on the number of occurrences of that word.

在此纵轴上找到位置

In statistics, the tightness of these points

在统计学上，这些数据点出现的密度

gives us what is known as the variance, an expected range for our data.

表现了阈值。让我们对这组数据有了一个预期

But, this is only a single characteristic in a very high-dimensional space.

但是这只是极其多元化的特征中的一项

With a clustering tool called Principal Component Analysis,

通过运用“主成分分析”这一用于数据集群的方法

we can reduce the multidimensional space into simple principal components

我们可以将多元化的数据简化为较为单一的成分群

that collectively measure the variance in Shakespeare's works.

此成分群便表现了莎士比亚作品的特征

We can then test the works of our candidates

现在我们可以通过对照成分

against those principal components.

来分析我们的目标人物啦

For example,

例如

如果弗朗西斯.培根的大量作品 与莎士比亚的成分群相符

if enough works of Francis Bacon fall within the Shakespearean variance,

that would be pretty strong evidence

我们就有证据表明

that Francis Bacon and Shakespeare are actually the same person.

弗朗西斯. 培根和莎士比亚是一个人

What did the results show?

那么，研究结果是怎样的呢？

Well, the stylometrists who carried this out have concluded

进行研究的文体学家们总结

that Shakespeare is none other than Shakespeare.

莎士比亚就是莎士比亚

The Bard is the Bard.

独此一家，别无二号

The pretender's works just don't match up with Shakespeare's signature style.

其他“李鬼”的风格和莎士比亚的文笔并不相符

However, our intrepid statisticians did find

但是， 我们强悍的数据表明

some compelling evidence of collaborations.

确实有合笔的有力证据

For instance, one recent study concluded

比如，一项近期研究表明

that Shakespeare worked with playwright Christopher Marlowe on "Henry VI,"

莎士比亚与戏剧家Christopher Marlowe 合写了《亨利六世》的

第一幕和第二幕

parts one and two.

莎士比亚的身份只是文体学 能帮助解决的大量疑案之一

Shakespeare's identity is only one of the many problems stylometry can resolve.

It can help us determine when a work was written,

它还能判断作品的创作时期

whether an ancient text is a forgery,

一篇古文的真伪

学生有没有抄袭

whether a student has committed plagiarism,

or if that email you just received is of a high priority or spam.

甚至收到的email是重要邮件还是垃圾邮件

那么莎士比亚的经典诗句如此一来

And does the timeless poetry of Shakespeare's lines

just boil down to numbers and statistics?

竟已意境全消，只剩下一堆数据而已吗？

Not quite.

不是的

Stylometric analysis may reveal what makes Shakespeare's works structurally distinct,

文体学也许能让我们明白， 是什么让莎翁的遣词造句鹤立鸡群

but it cannot capture the beauty of the sentiments and emotions they express,

但是它不能抓住文字中流淌的情怀

or why they affect us the way they do.

也无法理解我们为何长吁短叹，黯然神伤

At least, not yet.

起码现在不行

译者：Ruoqi Hu