Previously unknown play by Lope de Vega found using artificial intelligence

The author of a previously unknown play, which is stored in the National Library of Spain, was identified by specialists using artificial intelligence, The Guardian reported on Sunday. It turned out that the work of literature was created by the playwright Lope de Vega (1562 – 1635), who is a representative of the golden age of Spain.

According to the publication, 1,300 plays were previously digitized, mostly from the collection of the National Library of Spain. The authors of these works remained unidentified or were identified erroneously.

The texts of these plays were compared with the help of the Stylo program with those works of dramaturgy that were in the database of the Etso project.

The analysis revealed textual matches between the play La francesa Laura (“The Frenchwoman Laura”) by an unknown author and the works of Lope de Vega.

Further work on the texts was done by artificial intelligence and confirmed the conclusions that were made in the traditional analysis of texts.

Herman Vega, an expert on the golden age of Spanish literature from the University of Valladolid, said that the play La francesa Laura could have gone unnoticed if it had not been possible to identify its author with the help of modern technology. He also said that there are many more discoveries to come as Spain’s golden age has left many anonymous works yet to be attributed.

Lope de Vega is the author of hundreds of plays. Among them are “Dog in the Manger”, “Dance Teacher”, “Star of Seville”.