Repetition and Innovation in Dramatic Texts. An attempt to measure the degree of novelty in character’s speech

In the following, we develop a method to study dramas as information networks. We examine how innovative characters are in relation to each other, i.e. whether they tend to repeat the utterances of others or introduce new information to the discourse of the play. Our method captures the role of characters in this discourse, and through pairwise comparisons, we can also construct networks that represent character relationships in a new way compared to existing approaches. By examining some of Shakespeare’s plays, we also identify general patterns regarding the structural differences of the networks and gender roles in comedies and tragedies/non-comedies.