Linguistic individuation in the plays of Shakespeare and his peers, 1576-1599

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The question of how differently each speaker or writer uses language is important in everything from plagiarism to the definition of artistic genius. The project makes Shakespearean drama before 1600 a definitive test case of this wider problem of individuality in language. Australians are inheritors of the Western tradition of individual self-determination and self-expression; the project will help clarify one of the main assumptions behind this tradition. Australia is also an inheritor of the English-language culture of which Shakespeare is a key element, and the project will enrich the understanding of this culture through new light on his beginnings.