新发现的一首“莎士比亚”抒情诗——评盖里·泰勒的考据

Gary Taylor and "Shakespeare's" Shall I die?--A personal view of his approach

对于莎士比亚的研究,人们总是企盼有所创新,或是以新的理论论释他的诗作,或是用新的方法研究他的语言。1985年11月,有人在英国牛津鲍德莱图书馆(Bodleian)发现一首落款威廉·莎士比亚的九节抒情诗(见附诗),自然也引起学者的注意和文学爱好者的兴趣。 发现此诗的盖里·泰勒(Gary Taylor)是美国学者,1978年开始同英国莎士比亚权威学者斯坦利·威尔斯(Stanley Wells)

A description and analysis of the evidence offered by Gary Taylor in his attempt to identifyShakespeare in the recently rediscovered lyric 'Shall I die?', and the strength and weakness ofthe numerical approach to ascertaining doubtful authorship in textual criticism. It is arguedthat computer-processed data, significant for lexical and syntactic aspects of the text, areinadequate as a basis for judging with any degree of certainty the authorship of a poem that isshorter than 500 words and relatively conventional in pattern. To increase the reliability of theconclusion, it is suggested, more variables have to be taken into account with a view to eliminatingall otherpossibilities. The traditional content approach may still serve as an alternative or at leastan additional testing device to give confirming evidence.