Counting Shakespeare - explanatory notes
Notes to the Counting Shakespeare page.
Play counts
In short: columns CM and LM are the important ones.In more detail: the columns are:
| — | Play |
| CM | Number of characters per SRS Shakespeare (aka Moby Shakespeare), ie. this site. |
| CP | Number of characters derived from this page on the PlayShakespeare website. |
| dif | CP minus CM. See below. |
| LM | Number of lines per SRS Shakespeare as above. |
| LP | Number of lines derived from PlayShakespeare as above. |
| rat | LM divided by LP. See below. |
Two cases where the SRS and PS character counts agree but are made up differently:
- In Merry Wives, SRS has a character called "&c." as in "SHALLOW, PAGE, &c.: Well met, Master Ford."; A character called "All" and treats Servant in 3.3 as being different from First Servant and Second Servant in 4.2. On the other hand PS lists three non-speaking characters.
- Similarly Timon has several "All", "Both" and "Some" characters. PS compensates by listing non-speakers.
- In Richard III SRS has separate characters called GLOUCESTER and RICHARD III.
- In Coriolanus SRS has separate characters called MARCIUS and CORIOLANUS also several "All" characters.
- In the Dream SRS has separate characters called Lion, Moonshine, Prologue, Pyramus, Thisbe and Wall.
Character counts
Speaking together. In plays where two characters speak together, the “speaking together” line and word totals are the totals of the numbers above for each character.Thus in Antony and Cleopatra when Octavius Caesar, Mark Antony and Lepidus say together “That’s our offer” that will have added one line and three words to the counts of each of these characters.
The totals in the line below (the “n characters” line) have counted this speech once. The percentage figure is the ratio of the two word counts.
Index of plays
php file date: 2022 Jun 01 11:02:06