author-howellJames-freebo


Introduction

This is a Distant Reader "study carrel", a set of structured data intended to help the student, researcher, or scholar use & understand a corpus.

This study carrel was created on 2021-05-23 by Eric Morgan <emorgan@nd.edu>. The carrel was created using the Distant Reader zip2carrel process, and the input was a Zip file locally cached with the name input-file.zip. Documents in the Zip file have been saved in a cache, and each of them have been transformed & saved as a set of plain text files. All of the analysis -- "reading" -- has been done against these plain text files. For example, a short narrative report has been created. This Web page is a more verbose version of that report.

All study carrels are self-contained -- no Internet connection is necessary to use them. Download this carrel for offline reading. The carrel is made up of many subdirectories and data files. The manifest describes each one in greater detail.

Size

There are 50 item(s) in this carrel, and this carrel is 2,426,186 words long. Each item in your study carrel is, on average, 48,523 words long. If you dig deeper, then you might want to save yourself some time by reading a shorter item. On the other hand, if your desire is for more detail, then you might consider reading a longer item. The following charts illustrate the overall size of the carrel.

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histogram of sizes
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box plot of sizes

Readability

On a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 is very difficult and 100 is very easy, the documents have an average readability score of 91. Consequently, if you want to read something more simplistic, then consider a document with a higher score. If you want something more specialized, then consider something with a lower score. The following charts illustrate the overall readability of the carrel.

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histogram of readability
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box plot of readability

Word Frequencies

By merely counting & tabulating the frequency of individual words or phrases, you can begin to get an understanding of the carrel's "aboutness". Excluding "stop words", some of the more frequent words include:

one, king, great, de, may, made, will, time, now, first, much, also, many, yet, church, two, good, men, city, man, make, shall, well, ther, called, lord, hee, god, la, like, though, house, people, without, kings, london, came, som, france, might, place, divers, duke, part, things, every, never, three, day, long

Using the three most frequent words, the three files containing all of those words the most are Parthenopoeia, or, The history of the most noble and renowned kingdom of Naples with the dominions therunto annexed and the lives of all their kings : the first part / by that famous antiquary Scipio Mazzella ; made English by Mr. Samson Lennard ... ; the second part compil''d by James Howell, Esq., who, besides som [sic] supplements to the first part, drawes on the threed [sic] of the story to these present times, 1654 ; illustrated with the figures of the kings and arms of all the provinces., The civil wars of Spain in the beginning of the reign of Charls [sic] the 5t, Emperor of Germanie and King of that nation written originally in the Spanish-tongue by Prudencio de Sandoval ... ; never yet translated, now put into English by Captain J.W., and Epistolæ Ho-elianæ familiar letters domestic and forren divided into sundry sections, partly historicall, politicall, philosophicall, vpon emergent occasions / by James Howell..

The most frequent two-word phrases (bigrams) include:

roman non, de la, parish church, every one, old time, great britain, don pedro, english books, early english, iohn de, lord mayor, next day, books online, long time, de padilla, french king, ever since, north side, one may, king henry, two hundred, one another, south side, now called, may bee, don iohn, let us, one day, hundred thousand, lord high, one hundred, three hundred, god almighty, evry one, king edward, west side, page images, must needs, queen elizabeth, en la, will make, sir thomas, may well, common people, thousand men, five hundred, east side, high constable, text creation, creation partnership

And the three file that use all of the three most frequent phrases are The civil wars of Spain in the beginning of the reign of Charls [sic] the 5t, Emperor of Germanie and King of that nation written originally in the Spanish-tongue by Prudencio de Sandoval ... ; never yet translated, now put into English by Captain J.W. A new English grammar prescribing as certain rules as the languages will bear, for forreners to learn English : ther is also another grammar of the Spanish or Castilian toung, with some special remarks upon, and St Paul''s late progres upon earth, about a divorce ''twixt Christ and the Church of Rome, by reason of her dissolutenes and excesses. With the causes of these present commotions ''twixt the Pope, and the princes of Italy. A new way of invention agreeable to the times. Published by James Howell, Armig..

While often deemed superficial or sophomoric, rudimentary frequencies and their associated "word clouds" can be quite insightful:

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unigrams
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bigrams

Keywords

Sets of keywords -- statistically significant words -- can be enumerated by comparing the relative frequency of words with the number of times the words appear in an entire corpus. Some of the most statistically significant keywords in the carrel include:

king, majesty, court, church, lord, england, prince, english, city, army, duke, tcp, parliament, law, house, god, french, france, sea, roman, pope, kingdom, queen, land, crown, countrey, world, son, religion, laws, great, emperour, country, bishop, town, sun, spanish, spaniard, sir, master, london, italy, empire, ambassador, state, spain, river, nations, man, lady

And now word clouds really begin to shine:

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keywords

Topic Modeling

Topic modeling is another popular approach to connoting the aboutness of a corpus. If the study carrel could be summed up in a single word, then that word might be king, and Florus Hungaricus, or, The history of Hungaria and Transylvania deduced from the original of that nation, and their setling in Europe in the year of our Lord 461, to this dangerous and suspectful period of that kingdome by the present Turkish invasion, anno 1664. is most about that word.

If the study carrel could be summed up in three words ("topics") then those words and their significantly associated titles include:

  1. king - Parthenopoeia, or, The history of the most noble and renowned kingdom of Naples with the dominions therunto annexed and the lives of all their kings : the first part / by that famous antiquary Scipio Mazzella ; made English by Mr. Samson Lennard ... ; the second part compil''d by James Howell, Esq., who, besides som [sic] supplements to the first part, drawes on the threed [sic] of the story to these present times, 1654 ; illustrated with the figures of the kings and arms of all the provinces.
  2. church - Londinopolis, an historicall discourse or perlustration of the city of London, the imperial chamber, and chief emporium of Great Britain whereunto is added another of the city of Westminster, with the courts of justice, antiquities, and new buildings thereunto belonging / by Jam Howel, Esq.
  3. la - Paroimiographia Proverbs, or, Old sayed savves & adages in English (or the Saxon toung), Italian, French, and Spanish, whereunto the British for their great antiquity and weight are added ... / collected by J.H., Esqr.

If the study carrel could be summed up in five topics, and each topic were each denoted with three words, then those topics and their most significantly associated files would be:

  1. king, hath, ther - A survay of the signorie of Venice, of her admired policy, and method of government, &c. with a cohortation to all Christian princes to resent her dangerous condition at present / by James Howell Esq.
  2. called, church, city - Paroimiographia Proverbs, or, Old sayed savves & adages in English (or the Saxon toung), Italian, French, and Spanish, whereunto the British for their great antiquity and weight are added ... / collected by J.H., Esqr.
  3. king, great, hath - The wonderful, and most deplorable history of the latter times of the Jews with the destruction of the city of Jerusalem. Which history begins where the Holy Scriptures do end. By Josephus Ben Gorion whereunto is added a brief of the ten captivities; with the pourtrait of the Roman rams, and engines of battery, &c. As also of Jerusalem; with the fearful, and presaging apparitions that were seen in the air before her ruins. Moreover, there is a parallel of the late times and crimes in London, with those in Jerusalem.
  4. hee, bee, don - The civil wars of Spain in the beginning of the reign of Charls [sic] the 5t, Emperor of Germanie and King of that nation written originally in the Spanish-tongue by Prudencio de Sandoval ... ; never yet translated, now put into English by Captain J.W.
  5. doth, thetis, love - Ah, ha; tumulus, thalamus: two counter-poems, the first, an elegy upon Edward late Earl of Dorset; The second, an epithalamium to the Lord M. of [Dor]chester.

Moreover, the totality of the study carrel's aboutness, can be visualized with the following pie chart:

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topic model

Noun & Verbs

Through an analysis of your study carrel's parts-of-speech, you are able to answer question beyonds aboutness. For example, a list of the most frequent nouns helps you answer what questions; "What is discussed in this collection?":

time, men, man, people, place, things, part, day, year, divers, others, t, kings, way, hath, som, thing, self, side, hee, name, world, power, places, years, death, end, kind, body, life, words, nothing, street, ▪, times, one, viz, hand, king, house, reason, son, peace, rest, number, hands, regard, peeple, manner, none

An enumeration of the verbs helps you learn what actions take place in a text or what the things in the text do. Very frequently, the most common lemmatized verbs are "be", "have", and "do"; the more interesting verbs usually occur further down the list of frequencies:

was, is, be, have, were, had, are, being, made, said, did, do, make, called, having, came, been, sent, hath, put, take, go, come, let, say, taken, give, brought, found, went, took, know, gave, see, done, touching, given, am, find, according, makes, set, bee, thought, left, fell, kept, held, ''s, read

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nouns
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verbs

Proper Nouns

An extraction of proper nouns helps you determine the names of people and places in your study carrel.

king, de, church, 〉, ◊, 〈, lord, city, god, london, france, la, hath, duke, y, ●, c., england, court, prince, sir, st., spain, don, que, house, kingdom, henry, el, english, rome, thou, bin, sea, pope, parliament, venice, queen, ther, bishop, le, naples, lane, majesty, iohn, law, town, saint, emperour, edward

An analysis of personal pronouns enables you to answer at least two questions: 1) "What, if any, is the overall gender of my study carrel?", and 2) "To what degree are the texts in my study carrel self-centered versus inclusive?"

his, he, it, they, i, their, him, them, her, you, my, your, she, we, me, our, himself, us, themselves, thy, one, thee, its, yours, us''d, theirs, mine, ye, herself, ay, ours, ''s, ni, je, hers, whereof, whosoever, ts, na, em, ya, au, y, ne, myself, l, burgos, yn, wr, non

Below are words cloud of your study carrel's proper & personal pronouns.

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proper nouns
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pronouns

Adjectives & Verbs

Learning about a corpus's adjectives and adverbs helps you answer how questions: "How are things described and how are things done?" An analysis of adjectives and adverbs also points to a corpus's overall sentiment. "In general, is my study carrel positive or negative?"

other, great, many, first, such, good, same, more, own, much, little, old, high, new, last, whole, second, most, common, third, ancient, true, fair, long, next, better, certain, best, late, full, small, greatest, roman, poor, former, noble, french, non, large, ill, present, rich, famous, free, greater, very, few, -, young, least

not, so, then, now, also, up, more, as, most, very, there, well, out, never, much, only, therefore, first, ever, here, thus, down, thereof, again, ther, away, far, yet, still, in, before, long, rather, too, together, afterwards, off, over, onely, often, all, once, moreover, abroad, no, forth, presently, lately, indeed, sometimes

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adjectives
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adverbs

Next steps

There is much more to a study carrel than the things outlined above. Use this page's menubar to navigate and explore in more detail. There you will find additional features & functions including: ngrams, parts-of-speech, grammars, named entities, topic modeling, a simple search interface, etc.

Again, study carrels are self-contained. Download this carrel for offline viewing and use.

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