Q

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Yes! and the chaucer story is true, though hotly debated by scholars. I have
that story someplace I'll look and see if I can find it.

"Benjamin G. Sayre" wrote:

> Here's a technical/lit. crit. question (if such combination is
> possible...):
>
> Okay, now I want to ask a question about a potential strategy for
> determining whether an author has penned a particular piece of writing or
> not, irrespective of whether the author says this is true or not.
>
> I have been told by someone who works with computers that there is an
> algorithm which can be used to determine such a thing.  Given a sample of
> writing (whatever might qualify as a useful example), this algorithm
> supposedly can indicate whether or not another sample of writing was
> composed by the same author.  The person that told me about this said she
> recalled hearing that it had been used to try to settle issues over
> whether Chaucer wrote all of the _Canterbury Tales_ or something.
>
> Does this algorithm exist, and if so does it work?  I need to ask because
> I have no idea and I wouldn't really want to get to know computers well
> enough to find out.
>
> Ben