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Article published In:
Revisiting Shakespeare's Language
Edited by Annalisa Baicchi, Roberta Facchinetti, Silvia Cacchiani and Antonio Bertacca
[English Text Construction 11:1] 2018
► pp. 10–37

Measuring emotional temperatures in Shakespeare’s drama

| Lancaster University
| Lancaster University
| Lancaster University
| University of Wolverhampton

This paper demonstrates how the computational analysis of Shakespeare’s plays can map the emotional language used across individual plays and across the canon more broadly, affording new insights. It explains how we adapted the “sentiment analysis” tool SentiStrength for use with Early Modern English. Our analyses allow us to test out the long-held critical hypothesis that Shakespeare’s work moved from a comic to a “problem” and tragic period, and thence to a more optimistic redemptive mood in his last plays. The paper will also suggest how computational techniques can further understanding of genre, in particular the relationship between history and tragedy in Shakespeare’s work.

Keywords: computational linguistics, drama, emotion, sentiment, Shakespeare
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Emotion in language and literature
    • 2.1Emotion, language and computers
    • 2.2Emotion, literature and Shakespeare
  • 3.The computational analysis of emotion: SentiStrength and Early Modern English
    • 3.1The data for our study and its preparation: Shakespearean English
    • 3.2Sentiment strength detection with SentiStrength
    • 3.3Adapting SentiStrength to Early Modern English: The lexicon
    • 3.4Initial testing of SentiStrength on Shakespearean English
  • 4.Emotional temperature across the canon
    • 4.1Intensity of emotion
    • 4.2Degree of negative emotion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Note
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 27 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.00002.cul
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