The popular software Pl@giarism used to detect cheating students by comparing their papers against published texts was recently used by Sir Brian Vickers, an authority on Shakespeare, to determine whether or not Shakespeare collaborated with Thomas Kyd on The Reign of King Edward III.
The debate on whether or not Shakespeare contributed to the play has been raging for over 150 years, and now some scholars feel that Vickers’ work puts the question to rest. Apparently authors have literary fingerprints that can be used to compare and contrast texts to determine if they have collaborated or plagiarized other works.
Others disagree with the idea that Shakespeare collaborated; but it’s nice to think otherwise, as Jonathan Bate, Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at the University of Warwick, puts it: “I think it creates a more realistic image of Shakespeare than perhaps the romantic view some have of him as a solitary genius.”
