A computer programme has cast an unusual light on one of the longest-running debates in English literature.
Academics have wondered whether the famous play Henry VIII, usually attributed to William Shakespeare, was written in collaboration with another person.
Most have assumed the Bard wrote it in conjunction with John Fletcher.
Now SER Systems's intelligent learning machine SERbrainwave has analysed the text of Shakespeare's plays and those of other writers.
Text from Henry VIII was fed into the "intelligent" search engine and compared with a whole play by Fletcher.
The result "overwhelmingly" found the play to be by Shakespeare alone.
This flies in the face of substantial evidence in favour of the collaboration theory.
John Margeson, emeritus professor of English at the University of Toronto, said:
"The authorship is unlikely to be settled to everyone's satisfaction unless startling new external evidence is uncovered."
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