Stylistic palimpsests: Computational stylistic perspectives on precursory authorship in Aphra Behn’s drama

Computational stylistics has developed various methods for investigating and attributing authorship of collaborative literary texts. This article investigates ‘precursory authorship’ (Love, 2002): that is, the authorial traces of a source text that inform—to a greater or lesser degree—a subsequent literary output, in order to establish its relevance for our approach to and understanding of the linguistic properties of literary style. Precursory authorship and derivative adaptations are common features of early modern English drama, and the study focusses on two case studies relating to the plays of Restoration playwright, Aphra Behn (c. 1640–89). Using a combination of quantitative methods (Rolling Delta (RD), principal components analysis (PCA), Delta, and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis), the investigation highlights the presence of precursory authorial style in Behn’s The Rover and an anonymous work associated with Behn, The Counterfeit Bridegroom. The results suggest that precursory authorial style is identifiable in both cases, not only through a similarity with the source text but, to a lesser degree, other texts by the precursory author as well. The anonymous play yields complex and non-confirmatory evidence for Behn’s authorship. Methodologically, RD is most sensitive to precursory collaboration. Collectively, the findings highlight the importance of stylistic factors when describing and interpreting literary linguistic quantitative data: precursory authorial style is another facet that intersects with properties such as time period and genre. The article urges a more critical and theoretically informed view of authorially aligned linguistic style.