From: IN%"EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET" "Elaine Brennan" 14-NOV-1993 12:00:37.70 To: IN%"HUMANIST@BROWNVM.BITNET" "Multiple recipients of list HUMANIST" CC: Subj: 7.0292 Shakespeare (1/127) Received: from HKUVM1.HKU.HK (MAILER@HKUVM1) by vax.csc.cuhk.hk (PMDF #12160) id <01H5AU55SWZ48WWE2G@vax.csc.cuhk.hk>; Sun, 14 Nov 1993 09:24 +0800 Received: from HKUVM1.HKU.HK by HKUVM1.HKU.HK (Mailer R2.10 ptf000) with BSMTP id 7151; Sun, 14 Nov 93 09:22:50 HKT Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1993 20:17:56 EST From: Elaine Brennan Subject: 7.0292 Shakespeare (1/127) Sender: "HUMANIST: Humanities Computing" To: Multiple recipients of list HUMANIST Reply-to: Elaine Brennan Message-id: <01H5AU55SWZ48WWE2G@vax.csc.cuhk.hk> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 7, No. 0292. Saturday, 13 Nov 1993. Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 13:02:11 EST From: "Prof. Dr. H. Joachim Neuhaus" Subject: HUMANIST Dear Colleagues: The following message may be of interest to HUMANIST. Of course, I will consider any editorial suggestions. SHAKSPER will publish the message first. I thought it may have broader appeal for our conference too. Regards, H. J. Neuhaus ____________________________________________________ Univ.-Prof. Dr. H. J. Neuhaus Westf. Wilhelms-Universitaet Johannisstrasse 12-20 D-48143 Muenster, Germany Internet Address: Telephone: Telefax: Germany (0)251 83 4294 83 8353 ____________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ Subject: Shakespeare Database Project enters publication phase The Shakespeare Database Project at the Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Muenster, Germany published its first book publication at the 1993 Frankfurt Book Fair. Marvin Spevack (1993), A Shakespeare Thesaurus, Hildesheim, Zuerich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag. XXVI/541 pp. cloth ISBN 3-487-09775-3 DM 98.00; paperback ISBN 3-487-09776-1 DM 39.80 This new work is the first attempt to organize and classify the entire Shakespearean vocabulary. It presents the "world" which is to be derived from Shakespeare's ideolect and gives a vivid impression of the surrounding Elizabethan world. The perspective is thus not solely personal or literary or linguistic but also historical, sociological, and cultural. This classified inventory consists of 37 main groups and 897 subgroups, ranging from the Physical World to Sense Perception to Law to Religion to Time to Space. Special attention is given to such dominating interests as Communication and Motion, Solidarity and Warfare. Detailed are such things and words as horses and health, clothes and colours, swords and social structures, earth and education, gout and government, plants and pride. To account for the entire vocabulary, certain groups not normally found in a work of this kind have been formed. The largest consists of the names of places and persons arranged so as to constitute a map and a pocket history, mythology, and onomasticon. Others include malaproprisms, oaths, Latin and French words. ----------------------------------------------------------- The Shakespeare Database Project will publish further printed reference works early in 1994. For personal computer users there will also be a selfcontained Shakespeare Database CD-ROM product. Since 1990 the project has been using a dedicated VAXstation cluster as a production platform. The database uses Digital's rdb database software. The relational database design stresses the integration of editorial, linguistic, literary, and theatrical information by setting up 17 database *entities* with well over a hundred *attributes*. The Thesaurus Entity, just published in book-form, is one of these. *Cardinality* values for database entities range from 2,500 to over one million records per entity. Statistical and graphical data are included in the database. Besides standard query-languages such as SQL various custom-made access methods are also supported. There are traditional, philological entry points such as textual collation and editing with access to all copy-texts and variant readings. Electronic facsimile pages of early quarto and folio printings are accessible via play (act, scene, line, speech prefix) and word (lemma, wordform, morpheme) references. Linguistically oriented *datastructures*, such as wordformation down to the level of the morpheme, and inflection can be explored directly. Shakespeare's vocabulary is also accessible by means of etymological or chronological query strategies, including information on first occurrence in Early Modern English. The CD-ROM version for personal computer users will first support Microsoft Windows and will include navigational support. It will not presuppose relational database technicalities, such as SQL, etc. ____________________________________________________ Shakespeare Database Project Univ.-Prof. Dr. H. J. Neuhaus Direktor des Englischen Seminars Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Johannisstrasse 12-20 D-48143 Muenster, Germany Internet Address: Telephone (voice & answering): +49 251 834294 (fax): +49 251 838353 ____________________________________________________