“TO ANY COUNT , TO ALL COUNTS, TO WHAT IS MAN”: FINDING PATTERNS OF GENDER IN EARLY MODERN PLAYS HEATHER FROEHLICH UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE @HEATHERFRO
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT II SCENE III 1096-1104
SLICING AND DICING SHAKESPEARE • Open Source Shakespeare • AntConc • Wordhoard • The OED • The Historical Thesaurus of the OED
COLLOCATION The likelihood of one lemma (word) to appear next to another lemma (word) in a corpus
COLLOCATION Dice coefficient test: • mean of two conditional probabilities: P(w1,w2) and P(w2,w1) • 2 nd word in the bigram appears given the 1st word • 1 st word in the bigram appears given the 2 nd word • computed on a scale from 0-1
GENDER & FORMALITY • Man/woman • Lord/lady • Knave/wench
MALE VS FEMALE IN CORPUS • 1012 male characters • 147 female characters • 63 unknown, mixed or otherwise ambiguous characters
MAN, WOMAN
POTENTIAL COLLOCATES FOR BOTH Honest A Old No Any Poor Wise This What But These
POTENTIAL COLLOCATES: MAN Young Proper Good Honorable No Poor Dead
POTENTIAL COLLOCATES: WOMAN Fat False Foolish Mad Waxen Pernicious Wretched Weak Gentle Sweet
FALSE WOMEN? Falstaff ( Merry Wives of Windsor ) The Witches ( Macbeth ) Viola ( 12 th Night ) Portia ( Merchant of Venice )…?
FALSE WOMEN?
POTENTIAL COLLOCATES: WOMAN Fat False Foolish Mad Waxen Pernicious Wretched Weak Gentle Sweet
POTENTIAL COLLOCATES: MAN Old Honest Young Wise Proper Good Honorable No Poor Dead
PROPER MAN
PROPER MAN “O, Charles the Dauphin is a proper man ; No shape but his can please your dainty eye.” (Richard Plantagenet, Henry VI, part 1 V.iii.249) “You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man , as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely gentleman-like man: therefore you must needs play Pyramus.” (Quince, A Midsummer Night’s Dream , I.ii.341) “Cassio's a proper man : let me see now: To get his place and to plume up my will In double knavery—How, how? Let's see:— After some time, to abuse Othello's ear That he is too familiar with his wife.” (Iago, Othello , I.iii.740) “No, unpin me here. This Lodovico is a proper man .” (Desdemona, Othello , IV.iii.3056) “Think not I love him, though I ask for him; 'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well. But what care I for words? Yet words do well When he that speaks them pleases those that hear. It is a pretty youth- not very pretty; But, sure, he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him. He'll make a proper man .” (Phebe, As You Like It , III.v.1764).
MASTER, WOMAN
MASTER, WOMAN
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
LORD, LADY
SOME POTENTIAL COLLOCATES FOR BOTH Good Noble Gracious Sweet Young …
LORD, MAN Good Of What The And Why That No For These Who Young
‘LORD’ FOR GOD
LADY , WOMAN Fair Poor A What Face No
LADY: MORE-LIKELY COLLOCATES Sovereign Beauteous Virtuous Gallant Honourable
LADY: LESS-LIKELY COLLOCATES Or But Of Do Have Will Shall Be In
LORD: LESS-LIKELY COLLOCATES Marquis Anoint Entreat Valiant Fie Receive
NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE WORDS • Latinate as more formal, Germanic as less formal • Levin, Long & Schaffer (1981), Levin & Novak (1991), DeForest & Johnson (2001), Bar-Ilian & Berman (2007) • Shakespeare avoids Latin! • Hope (2012: 260), Spevack (1985: ii. 343-61)
LADY: MORE-LIKELY COLLOCATES Sovereign Beauteous Virtuous Gallant Honourable
CLOSE-READING “I will overglance the superscript: 'To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline’ ” (Holofernes, Love’s Labours Lost: IV.ii.1280) “ This man is Pyramus, if you would know; This beauteous lady Thisby is certain. This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder; And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content to whisper.” (Quince, Midsummer Night’s Dream : V.i. 1970)
VIRTUOUS?
CLOSE READING
LORD
LADY
WENCH
KNAVE
KNAVE, WENCH Mad A Good Poor How Thou As
KNAVE Lousy Cuckoldly Lazy Rascally Cowardly Drunken Scurvy Honest …and Ford
FORD + KNAVE
FORD + KNAVE
MAN, KNAVE Young Honest A Poor These This As What That
HONEST KNAVE
KNAVE, LORD You
WENCH Light Kitchen Arm
KITCHEN WENCH Marry, sir, she's the kitchen wench and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light. I warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn a Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday, she'll burn a week longer than the whole world. (Dromio of Syracuse, Comedy of Errors III.ii.857) Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a kitchen-wench ; marry, she had a better love to be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy; Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night. (Mercutio, Romeo & Juliet , II.iv.1198)
LIGHT WENCH
WOMAN, WENCH Poor No
LADY , WENCH Good My Poor The
IN CONCLUSION • A formality distinction emerges through an investigation of words which are likely to appear next to each other • But it’s not what we think it should be.
THANK YOU
3 WEIRD PLAYS • Love’s Labours Lost • Comedy of Errors • Merry Wives of Windsor
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