Dating Victorians

The writing style of a number of authors writing in§English was empirically investigated to detect§stylistic patterns in relation to advancing age. The§aim was to§identify the type of stylistic markers among lexical,§syntactical, phonemic, entropic,§character-based, and content ones most able to§discriminate between early,§middle, and late works of the selected authors, and§the best classification or prediction§algorithm most suited for this task. A pilot§examination of personal letters and poetry by§Christina Georgina Rossetti and Edgar Allan Poe§suggested that authors and genres vary§inconsistently. Examination of selected variables on§Shakespeare s plays which emphasised their predictive§power, led to four experiments on personal§correspondence and poetry from Edna St Vincent Millay and§William Butler Yeats. The methods used were stepwise§multiple linear regression, regression trees, ordinal§logistic regression and artificial§neural networks. Prediction was found influenced by§method, authorship, and genre whereas classification §was found sensitive to all factors. Given the current§experiments, generalizable conclusions for the wider§author population have been avoided.