Literature // Current

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved... more

WestmanRandoballet
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3 months ago
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New Website Aims To Be An iTunes For Poetry

The new website PoetrySpeaks is aiming to serve as a social networking hub and online... more

atomiclegion
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1 day ago
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All Your Characters Talk The Same — And They're Not A Hivemind!

http://io9.com/5379280/all-your-characters-talk-the-same--and-theyre-not-a-hivemind?sky... more

remanns
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4 days ago
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50 Must-Read Novels from the 20th Century

Literature, as with all forms of creative expression, is a highly subjective art. This... more

eva2
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5 days ago
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Our Geeky Hearts Are Bigger On The Inside Than On The Outside - Michael Chabon - io9

http://io9.com/5396327/our-geeky-hearts-are-bigger-on-the-inside-than-on-the-outside... more

remanns
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5 days ago
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Philip K. Dick's 'Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said' Being Adapted

In addition to picking up the Terminator rights, The Halcyon Co. also bought the... more

atomiclegion
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6 months ago
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2 comments

100 Essential Reads for the Lifelong Learner

From literature to non-fiction to history to biographies to science and the social... more

sunnyspeaks
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6 days ago
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12 Unfinished SF Novels We Wish We Could Read - Books - io9

Of all the alternate worlds we're dying to visit, the greatest is that mythical room... more

quanta
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16 days ago
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NDiaye becomes first black woman to win top French book award

In a historic first, French-Senegalese writer Marie NDiaye was declared the winner of... more

knews121
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7 days ago
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Why Muppet Peter Pan? Why not?

Don't let the green felt fool you; this is one fantasy that everybody in the family... more

WesleySmith
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13 days ago
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Anne Rice talks 'The Twilight Saga', maturity of girls vs. boys and protective vampire appeal

Anne Rice is considered one of the best author for all things on the supernatural,... more

hpseaton
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13 days ago
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Twitter book condenses classic literature into 140 characters. Oh joy.

Two US students have rewritten entire iconic books in just 140 characters and crammed... more

richjm
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13 days ago
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Classic Poems Of Love

'Annabel Lee' by Edgar Allan Poe It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by... more

ipodity
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14 days ago
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3 comments

In Memory of Norma Fox Mazer

...Norma was an award-winning writer for children and young adults...

unclepete
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21 days ago
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Technogibberish

La Forge: "Captain, the tech is overteching." Picard: "Well, route the auxiliary... more

remanns
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26 days ago
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4 comments

Computer program proves Shakespeare didn't work alone, researchers claim

"The 400-year-old mystery of whether William Shakespeare was the author of an unattributed play about Edward III may have been solved by a computer program designed to detect plagiarism.

Sir Brian Vickers, an authority on Shakespeare at the Institute of English Studies at the University of London, believes that a comparison of phrases used in The Reign of King Edward III with Shakespeare’s early works proves conclusively that the Bard wrote the play in collaboration with Thomas Kyd, one of the most popular playwrights of his day.

The professor used software called Pl@giarism, developed by the University of Maastricht to detect cheating students, to compare language used in Edward III — published anonymously in 1596, when Shakespeare was 32 — with other plays of the period.

He discovered that playwrights often use the same patterns of speech, meaning that they have a linguistic fingerprint. The program identifies phrases of three words or more in an author’s known work and searches for them in unattributed plays. In tests where authors are known to be different, there are up to 20 matches because some phrases are in common usage. When Edward III was tested against Shakespeare’s works published before 1596 there were 200 matches.

Sir Brian said: “There might be ten to 20 common phrases between two plays by different authors. The computer is picking out three-word sequences that could just be chunks of grammar. But when you get metaphors or unusual parts of speech, it is different.”

The Shakespeare matches came from four scenes, about 40 per cent of the play. The remaining scenes had about 200 matches with works by Kyd, best known for The Spanish Tragedy, a play known to have influenced Shakespeare, indicating that he wrote the other 60 per cent of the play.

The suggestion that Shakespeare had a hand in Edward III has been debated for about 150 years but has found favour only recently. It was ignored by mainstream publications until 1997, when it was included in The Riverside Shakespeare, and has subsequently been accepted by The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works.

Sir Brian said: “When you have 200 [matches] you can be pretty sure. Everyone can see that certain scenes are very Shakespearean, but no one could see why there were verses that are definitely not his. There is a real difference in quality between the two authors.”

The mystery has endured because some academics refuse to believe that Shakespeare collaborated with other playwrights at that stage of his career, he said. “They think, Shakespeare has been elevated to the position of the Bard, so why would he have collaborated with anyone else?”""The 400-year-old mystery of whether William Shakespeare was the author of an... more