Henry VIII: Did Shakespeare really write the play? AI might have answer

An Artificial intelligence machine-learning algorithm may be able to tell if Shakespeare is really the author of Henry Vlll or not, as it is being trained on the works of famous writers such as Shakespeare and Fletcher alongside other contemporary writers. According to reports, Henry Vlll is a collaboration between William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. It is said that after Shakespeare passed away in 1616, Fletcher came on board as the playwright for an acting troupe The King's Men. However, it is not known as to who wrote what parts of the play.

Canonical division

Czech artificial intelligence researcher, Petr Plechac, who is training the machine-learning algorithm, stated that the AI proved that John Fletcher had penned most of the scenes including the majority of the second act of the play. It also went on to find that the play included a lot of joint scenes and two distinct writing styles that confirmed a collaboration between the two playwrights. Plechac added that his findings significantly supported the division of the popular play between Shakespeare and Fletcher as stated by James Spedding.

James Spedding was a literary analyst, who was the first person to say that John Fletcher contributed to Henry VIII after he noticed similar writing techniques in Henry VIII and Fletcher's writings. Spedding also stated that Fletcher was in a habit of writing 'ye' instead of 'you' and 'em' instead of 'them' and these differences were seen in Henry VIII. According to reports, artificial intelligence takes the main structure of the author's work to train the algorithm and then a smaller body to test its method on. However, it needs to be kept in mind that an author's writing style can be changed over time so the AI needs to be sued on a work belonging to a similar time period.

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Movie adaptations

No other literary figure is as contemporary as Shakespeare. Dating back to the 16th century, many find his plays relevant in every period as they capture basic human emotions and many of his plays have been adapted into popular movies. The Shakespearean play, Romeo and Juliet has been adapted on-screen countless times. However, one adaptation stood out among the rest. Starring Leonardo Di Caprio and Claire Danes, the movie used all the original dialogues of Shakespeare’s play but is set in the modern-day world. In this play adaptation, Mercutio’s character is shown as an African-American, bisexual man whose love for Romeo seems more real than what Shakespeare showed in the play. The character of Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin, is also made into a more energetic and gender-fluid character.

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This movie is similar to Romeo+Juliet and uses the original archaic English dialogues in a modern-day New York setting. The movie stars Ethan Hawke as Hamlet, Kyle MacLachlan as Claudius, Diane Venora as Gertrude and Julia Stiles as Ophelia. Unlike the Shakespearean play where Hamlet is banished to England and leaves on a ship, Ethan’s character leaves on a plane.

There are also some interesting techniques used by the director. For example, when Claudius confronts Hamlet in the laundromat and pushes him from machine 2 to machine 3, it correlates with the play where the confrontation scene begins in Act IV scene 2 and continues to scene 3. The popular Disney movie, Lion King is also an animated adaptation of Hamlet. 

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(With inputs from agencies)