“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)

•  2nd word in the bigram appears given the 1st word •  1st word in the bigram appears given the 2nd 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 (12th 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