ETSO - Estilometría aplicada al Teatro del Siglo de Oro

Computational Research on Spanish Golden Age Theater

ETSO is an academic project applying computer-assisted analysis, especially stylometry, to questions of authorship in Spanish Golden Age theater. It grew out of the collaboration between researcher Álvaro Cuéllar of the Autonomous University of Barcelona and professor Germán Vega García-Luengos of the University of Valladolid.

Stylometry compares patterns in how words are used across texts. ETSO stresses that computational results are clues for further study, not final proof of authorship; they need to be examined by literary scholars alongside genre, subject, dating, and the condition of each text.

Searchable Texts and Research Tools

The project offers stylometric reports, TEXORO, a searchable text platform for Golden Age plays, and BITESO, an open-access collection of digital texts. TEXORO supports searches for words, exact phrases, and patterns, with filters for title, genre, traditional or computational attribution, and text status.

Many BITESO texts were produced through automated transcription of printed works and manuscripts. The project describes them as working texts that may contain transcription errors and omit character names and stage directions. It also provides automatically generated summaries as a starting point for orientation, not a substitute for reading or scholarly analysis, and a network visualization of stylistic relationships among plays.

Methods and Literary Questions

ETSO lists Stylo, developed by Maciej Eder, Jan Rybicki, and Mike Kestemont, for comparing lexical patterns, and Transkribus for automated handwriting and print recognition. The project points to examples where stylometry supports traditional attributions, including La dama boba, and cases where it has suggested a different author, such as La francesa Laura.

Researchers and readers can use the project to explore a large body of theater through searchable texts while keeping computational findings in conversation with philological analysis.