Go With the Flow: A Quantitative Analysis of Linguistic Structures of Gender and Gendered Authority in Shakespearean Stage Literature as a Scholarly Alternative to Conventional Generic Categories

This dissertation consists of five chapters, beginning with a brief introduction and followed by a concluding section. The dual purposes of this thesis are to demonstrate the reliability of computational analysis as a non-reductive academic tool for sustained, critical, literary investigation in concert with more traditional literary scholarship; and to expose flaws in traditional critical perspectives of generic categories applied to Shakespeare’s plays by proposing an alternative, synergistic method of grouping his plays for scholarly analysis that combines traditional and computational scholarship. In the Introduction, I familiarize the reader with philosophical theory that underpins my argument, and statistical methods used in the dissertation by myself and relevant scholars in the field, such as basic frequency and proximity approaches to quantitative language measurement, and topic modelling. In Chapter 1, I discuss three emblematic examples of technically expert scholars seeking to reconcile the apparent objectivity of quantitative, computational and mathematical research methods with the qualitative, semantic complexity of literary material that these methods are used to study. I demonstrate how treating quantitative and qualitative methods of research as entirely separate mediums can limit the scholarly potential of their combination. Given that the purpose of this dissertation is to synergize qualitative and quantitative research to provide enhanced critical perspectives on the relationship between computational analysis and literature, and between Shakespeare’s plays as literary texts and accepted generic groupings of those plays, my thesis does not focus on scholarly work that either does only qualitative or quantitative work as mutually exclusive fields of study. This said, I do address heavily quantitative approaches to literary material (see Chapters 1 & 2), and I carefully consider the merits and failings of more purely qualitative scholarship as a tool for addressing generic categorization in Shakespeare (see Chapters 3 & 5). In Chapter 2, I use the context established in the Introduction and Chapter 1 to discuss specifically Shakespearean digital investigative work in comparison to my own work, showing how computational scholarship can be improved through the sequential layering of analyses in the form of topic models and sentiment analysis over traditionally framed literary research questions. I use this comparison to deepen my discussion of the benefits of consciously combining quantitative and qualitative research methods in literary investigation. In Chapter 3, I build on my own digital modelling results to assess the scholarly utility of traditional generic perspectives on Shakespeare’s plays in comparison with categories of language generated by seeded and selective topic modelling applied with word frequency metrics, which reveal alternative linguistic structures to those critics are familiar with in thinking about Shakespeare’s plays. I engage with traditional scholarship in Shakespearean linguistics and genre studies to refine my quantitative focus on patterns of opposition and contrast, especially as they relate to authority and gendered relationships. These patterns offer a natural alternative to conventional generic labels. I discuss conceptual frameworks for considering this perspective, and the information on which it is based. In Chapter 4, I build on the logical framework laid out in subsequent chapters to argue that conventional genre can take a provable backseat in grouping Shakespeare’s plays for the purposes of scholarly research, in comparison to more complex relational categories of language. I provide quantitative, graphical evidence for the utility of the linguistic architecture of gendered authority and gendered rule structures as one type of alternative categorizing principle in these terms. I do not seek to take this concept for granted but to explain its critical purpose relative to my own quantitative findings, and to investigative impulses on the part of more purely qualitative scholarship (see Chapters 3 & 4), which guides me to look more closely at these areas of language. I show that conventional, primarily commercial generic categories fail to account for relational depth in Shakespeare’s plays in comparison to nested relational structures that can be isolated and visualized using quantitative, computational modelling approaches. In Chapter 5, I lay out reasoning for why quantitative methods using computer coding are especially suitable in this regard, and I engage in sustained conversation between my quantitative results and the non-computational work of relevant scholars, in support of my contention that travelling beyond traditional generic categories can breathe new life into heavily saturated academic fields, such as Shakespearean stage literature. I summarize how my investigation functions as a methodological roadmap that allows researchers to consciously layer quantitative and qualitative research approaches together, to achieve novelty in a field heavily saturated with scholarship and with the burdens of social, philosophical and political critical opinion that these constitute. I conclude by noting that for the purposes of scholarly research, Shakespeare’s stage literature can be accurately and incisively represented at a mathematical level that reveals valuable perspectives on complex critical issues, such as gendered authority and conventional genre, noting that the goal of such research is often not to replace more traditional scholarship, but to enhance it.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Stevenson, Elizabeth

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Scott-Warren, Jason
• Lyne, Raphael

• Digital Humanities
• Shakespeare
• Early Modern Drama
• Topic Modelling
• Computational Text Analysis
• Gendered Authority
• Epistemology
• Network Analysis

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/a42d5b8f-07a7-46d7-a09d-ae4f7187a645/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.127087

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/398146