Collaboration theory rejected as SER associative search engine joins academic debate over authorship of Elizabethan drama

17 October 2000: An unusual shaft of light was cast on a long-running literary debate yesterday when analysis by SER Systems’ (SER’s) intelligent learning engine, SERbrainware (www.serbrainware.com), suggested, more or less conclusively, that Henry VIII was written solely by William Shakespeare and not the result of a collaborative effort – usually assumed to be John Fletcher - a view currently held by many literary experts.

An initial analysis of selected texts from the Bard’s late play has shown them to have an overall 88% likelihood of being by Shakespeare, when compared with such established works in his canon as Richard III, Henry IV Part 1, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice and A Winter’s Tale. “Such a high score in terms of the SERbrainware engine indicates a very strong probability that Henry VIII was written by Shakespeare alone,” confirms SER’s Peter Turnbull.

In the case of Henry VIII, 71 pages of pure text were compared with selected complete works of Shakespeare, Fletcher and Marlowe previously entered in similar format. The resulting analysis “overwhelmingly” found the play to be by Shakespeare alone, with little textural affinity with his claimed co-author.

By way of comparison, the study showed that selected other contemporary plays are clearly not the work of this most famous of Elizabethan playwrights. Among those analysed:

• John Fletcher – Bonduca at 10%
• Christopher Marlowe – Doctor Faustus and Tambourlaine both rated at 0%;
• Benjamin Jonson – Volpone at 0%;
• Thomas Dekker - The Roaring Girl at 16%, and
• John Webster – The Duchess of Malfi at 4%.

Using SERbrainware in this way, global market leading software developer of knowledge management and eBusiness automation solutions, SER, has entered a debate which has raged for more than a century, since James Spedding first raised doubts concerning the play’s authorship in 1850.

Though there is currently much academic support for the view that Henry VIII was in fact a collaborative effort with fellow Elizabethan playwright, John Fletcher, John Margeson, emeritus professor of English at the University of Toronto, believes that, “the authorship question is unlikely to be settled to everyone’s satisfaction unless startling new external evidence is uncovered at some future date.”

Associative searching
A broad but random sample of each of the selected plays was put into the search engine in pure text format and compared with six complete Shakespeare and Marlowe plays (and, in the case of Henry VIII, with Fletcher). In each case it then determined the likelihood that the work was by any of these major playwrights.

SERbrainware is SER’s award winning neural network based intelligent learning engine, which reads, analyses and acts on text with human-like intelligence, using a patented neural network algorithm to bring unprecedented speed and accuracy to eBusiness automation. It heralds a new generation of applications that render complex rules based systems virtually obsolete.

“Critically, SERbrainware learns by example,” points out Turnbull. “It analyses both structured and unstructured text from any media type and is trained by people who show it how they would read and make decisions on the basis of available information.”

In classification mode, a small sample is used to teach the engine how to categorise – it is then able to classify large quantities of new text documents into the same categories. In its search mode SERbrainware takes the word patterns in a small sample of documents – representative of the required content – and then analyses, finds and returns documents with similar meanings.

All this is achieved with unprecedented speed. “Following the inputting of raw text examples of each play, the text of Henry VIII was read, understood and classified in less than five minutes,” he confirms.

Leveraging corporate know-how
“The essence of SERbrainware is that it automates the process of dealing with the daily flood of new information from websites, e-mail, fax traditional mail and even voice,” says Ian Williamson, VP of SER. “It classifies and sorts information intelligently in ways that were previously only possible if individuals read it.”

The commercial applications of SERbrainware are both broad and far-reaching. At its simplest it can have a dramatic impact in a mailroom environment where large volumes of documents have to be sorted and categorised. In addition, it is particularly relevant where high volume repetitive tasks require highly skilled input, for example patent administration or processing medical insurance claims, freeing up time and expertise for more value-added activities.

“SER’s contribution to this literary controversy will itself no doubt be the subject of some debate,” believes Williamson. “What is beyond doubt however is that by leveraging existing corporate know-how in this way, SERbrainware will increase the overall clockspeed of an organisation.

“The result is that for the first time, clients will be able to conduct eBusiness at internet speed – a true eRevolution.”

Ends.

Notes to Editors:

SER Systems (SER) is a global market-leading software developer of knowledge management and eBusiness automation solutions. Founded in 1984 by current German C.E.O., Gert J Reinhardt, it has a 15-year heritage in document management and workflow. SER helps clients intelligently capture and exploit their intellectual capital for new markets and applications. SER enables organisations to achieve improved customer service and retention, dramatic process improvements, reduced time to market, significantly reduced costs and increased competitive edge. SER develops and supports solutions for a diverse range of markets including finance & banking, government, telecommunications, utility, rail, construction, distribution & retail, and has over 5,000 client installations worldwide. SER employs more than 1,400 people worldwide in direct sales, professional services and support organizations in the U.S. (Rochester Hills, MI, Bethesda,MD and Hernden,VA), Germany, the UK, France, Austria, and Switzerland. For more information visit us at http://www.ser.com/

For information, please contact:

Glenn Cross
Director of Marketing
Phone: (248) 853-5353
E-mail: gcross@sermacrosoft.com