subject-newEngland-freebo


Introduction

This is a Distant Reader "study carrel", a set of structured data intended to help the student, researcher, or scholar use & understand a corpus.

This study carrel was created on 2021-05-24 by Eric Morgan <emorgan@nd.edu>. The carrel was created using the Distant Reader zip2carrel process, and the input was a Zip file locally cached with the name input-file.zip. Documents in the Zip file have been saved in a cache, and each of them have been transformed & saved as a set of plain text files. All of the analysis -- "reading" -- has been done against these plain text files. For example, a short narrative report has been created. This Web page is a more verbose version of that report.

All study carrels are self-contained -- no Internet connection is necessary to use them. Download this carrel for offline reading. The carrel is made up of many subdirectories and data files. The manifest describes each one in greater detail.

Size

There are 25 item(s) in this carrel, and this carrel is 924,683 words long. Each item in your study carrel is, on average, 36,987 words long. If you dig deeper, then you might want to save yourself some time by reading a shorter item. On the other hand, if your desire is for more detail, then you might consider reading a longer item. The following charts illustrate the overall size of the carrel.

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histogram of sizes
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box plot of sizes

Readability

On a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 is very difficult and 100 is very easy, the documents have an average readability score of 91. Consequently, if you want to read something more simplistic, then consider a document with a higher score. If you want something more specialized, then consider something with a lower score. The following charts illustrate the overall readability of the carrel.

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histogram of readability
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box plot of readability

Word Frequencies

By merely counting & tabulating the frequency of individual words or phrases, you can begin to get an understanding of the carrel's "aboutness". Excluding "stop words", some of the more frequent words include:

one, christ, yet, will, may, god, many, men, church, great, much, good, england, new, two, man, time, like, people, master, now, haue, also, first, well, made, lord, make, mr, truth, english, shall, peace, hee, cotton, though, world, must, three, without, true, might, place, vs, long, another, others, come, us, found

Using the three most frequent words, the three files containing all of those words the most are The bloody tenent yet more bloody: by Mr Cottons endevour to wash it white in the blood of the lambe; of whose precious blood, spilt in the blood of his servants; and of the blood of millions spilt in fromer and later wars for conscience sake, that most bloody tenent of presecution for cause of conscience, upon a second tryal, is found now more apparently and more notoriously guilty. In this rejoynder to Mr Cotton, are principally I. The nature of persecution, II. The power of the civill sword in spirituals examined; III. The Parliaments permission of dissenting consciences justified. Also (as a testimony to Mr Clarks narrative) is added a letter to Mr Endicot governor of the Massachusets in N.E. By R. Williams of Providence in New-England., America painted to the life. A true history of the originall undertakings of the advancement of plantations into those parts, with a perfect relation of our English discoveries ... 1628. to 1658. declaring the forms of their government, policies, religions, manners, customes, military disciplines, warres with the Indians, the commodities of their countries, a description of their townes, and havens, the increase of their trading with the names of their governours and magistrates. More especially an absolute narrative of the north parts of America, and of the discoveries and plantations of our English in New-England. Written by Sir Ferdinando Gorges .... Publisht ... by his grand-child Ferdinando Gorges Esquire, who hath much enlarged it and added severall accurate descriptions of his owne., and The generall historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles with the names of the adventurers, planters, and governours from their first beginning. an⁰: 1584. to this present 1624. With the procedings of those severall colonies and the accidents that befell them in all their journyes and discoveries. Also the maps and descriptions of all those countryes, their commodities, people, government, customes, and religion yet knowne. Divided into sixe bookes. By Captaine Iohn Smith sometymes governour in those countryes & admirall of New England..

The most frequent two-word phrases (bigrams) include:

master cotton, christ jesus, new england, mr cotton, lord jesus, early english, english books, sir thomas, iames towne, civil state, haue beene, next day, books online, one hundred, lord christ, captaine smith, master cottons, mine host, jesus christ, three hundred, two hundred, creation partnership, christ iesus, text creation, page images, one another, mr cottons, reverend author, civil magistrate, saith master, may see, iohn smith, captaine iohn, every one, long time, gods people, sir george, great store, holy ghost, short time, man may, many times, pleased god, will make, will never, lords supper, new testament, many places, represented either, characters represented

And the three file that use all of the three most frequent phrases are The bloody tenent yet more bloody: by Mr Cottons endevour to wash it white in the blood of the lambe; of whose precious blood, spilt in the blood of his servants; and of the blood of millions spilt in fromer and later wars for conscience sake, that most bloody tenent of presecution for cause of conscience, upon a second tryal, is found now more apparently and more notoriously guilty. In this rejoynder to Mr Cotton, are principally I. The nature of persecution, II. The power of the civill sword in spirituals examined; III. The Parliaments permission of dissenting consciences justified. Also (as a testimony to Mr Clarks narrative) is added a letter to Mr Endicot governor of the Massachusets in N.E. By R. Williams of Providence in New-England. America painted to the life. A true history of the originall undertakings of the advancement of plantations into those parts, with a perfect relation of our English discoveries ... 1628. to 1658. declaring the forms of their government, policies, religions, manners, customes, military disciplines, warres with the Indians, the commodities of their countries, a description of their townes, and havens, the increase of their trading with the names of their governours and magistrates. More especially an absolute narrative of the north parts of America, and of the discoveries and plantations of our English in New-England. Written by Sir Ferdinando Gorges .... Publisht ... by his grand-child Ferdinando Gorges Esquire, who hath much enlarged it and added severall accurate descriptions of his owne., and A letter of many ministers in old England requesting the judgement of their reverend brethren in New England concerning nine positions written Anno Dom. 1637 : together with their answer thereunto returned, anno 1639 : and the reply made unto the said answer and sent over unto them, anno 1640 / by Simeon Ash, and William Rathband..

While often deemed superficial or sophomoric, rudimentary frequencies and their associated "word clouds" can be quite insightful:

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unigrams
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bigrams

Keywords

Sets of keywords -- statistically significant words -- can be enumerated by comparing the relative frequency of words with the number of times the words appear in an entire corpus. Some of the most statistically significant keywords in the carrel include:

england, tcp, new, english, god, lord, sea, indians, church, man, country, churches, river, land, haue, chap, bay, virginia, town, ministers, king, good, christ, captaine, west, spirit, scripture, pastor, north, master, island, covenant, countries, countrey, coast, world, word, winter, smith, salvages, reverend, plantation, nation, minister, iles, french, fort, fish, esquire, earth

And now word clouds really begin to shine:

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keywords

Topic Modeling

Topic modeling is another popular approach to connoting the aboutness of a corpus. If the study carrel could be summed up in a single word, then that word might be christ, and A description of New England: or The obseruations, and discoueries, of Captain Iohn Smith (admirall of that country) in the north of America, in the year of our Lord 1614 with the successe of sixe ships, that went the next yeare 1615; and the accidents befell him among the French men of warre: with the proofe of the present benefit this countrey affoords: whither this present yeare, 1616, eight voluntary ships are gone to make further tryall. is most about that word.

If the study carrel could be summed up in three words ("topics") then those words and their significantly associated titles include:

  1. christ - The bloody tenent yet more bloody: by Mr Cottons endevour to wash it white in the blood of the lambe; of whose precious blood, spilt in the blood of his servants; and of the blood of millions spilt in fromer and later wars for conscience sake, that most bloody tenent of presecution for cause of conscience, upon a second tryal, is found now more apparently and more notoriously guilty. In this rejoynder to Mr Cotton, are principally I. The nature of persecution, II. The power of the civill sword in spirituals examined; III. The Parliaments permission of dissenting consciences justified. Also (as a testimony to Mr Clarks narrative) is added a letter to Mr Endicot governor of the Massachusets in N.E. By R. Williams of Providence in New-England.
  2. haue - The generall historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles with the names of the adventurers, planters, and governours from their first beginning. an⁰: 1584. to this present 1624. With the procedings of those severall colonies and the accidents that befell them in all their journyes and discoveries. Also the maps and descriptions of all those countryes, their commodities, people, government, customes, and religion yet knowne. Divided into sixe bookes. By Captaine Iohn Smith sometymes governour in those countryes & admirall of New England.
  3. like - A true and faithful account of the four chiefest plantations of the English in America to wit, of Virginia, New-England, Bermudus, Barbados : with the temperature of the air, the nature of the soil, the rivers, mountains, beasts, fowls, birds, fishes, trees, plants, fruits, &c. : as also, of the natives of Virginia, and New-England, their religion, customs, fishing, hunting, &c. / collected by Samuel Clarke ...

If the study carrel could be summed up in five topics, and each topic were each denoted with three words, then those topics and their most significantly associated files would be:

  1. christ, church, god - The bloody tenent yet more bloody: by Mr Cottons endevour to wash it white in the blood of the lambe; of whose precious blood, spilt in the blood of his servants; and of the blood of millions spilt in fromer and later wars for conscience sake, that most bloody tenent of presecution for cause of conscience, upon a second tryal, is found now more apparently and more notoriously guilty. In this rejoynder to Mr Cotton, are principally I. The nature of persecution, II. The power of the civill sword in spirituals examined; III. The Parliaments permission of dissenting consciences justified. Also (as a testimony to Mr Clarks narrative) is added a letter to Mr Endicot governor of the Massachusets in N.E. By R. Williams of Providence in New-England.
  2. haue, men, vs - The generall historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles with the names of the adventurers, planters, and governours from their first beginning. an⁰: 1584. to this present 1624. With the procedings of those severall colonies and the accidents that befell them in all their journyes and discoveries. Also the maps and descriptions of all those countryes, their commodities, people, government, customes, and religion yet knowne. Divided into sixe bookes. By Captaine Iohn Smith sometymes governour in those countryes & admirall of New England.
  3. like, great, man - A true and faithful account of the four chiefest plantations of the English in America to wit, of Virginia, New-England, Bermudus, Barbados : with the temperature of the air, the nature of the soil, the rivers, mountains, beasts, fowls, birds, fishes, trees, plants, fruits, &c. : as also, of the natives of Virginia, and New-England, their religion, customs, fishing, hunting, &c. / collected by Samuel Clarke ...
  4. hee, new, england - New English Canaan, or New Canaan containing an abstract of New England, composed in three bookes : the first booke setting forth the originall of the natives, their manners and customes, together with their tractable nature and love towards the English : the second booke setting forth the naturall indowments of the countrie, and what staple commodities it yeeldeth : the third booke setting forth what people are planted there, their prosperity, what remarkable accidents have happened since the first planting of it, together with their tenents, and practise of their church / written by Thomas Morton ...
  5. christ, god, court - A short story of the rise, reign, and ruin of the Antinomians, Familists, and libertines that infected the churches of New-England and how they were confuted by the assembly of ministers there as also of the magistrates proceedings in court against them : together with God''s strange remarkable judgements from heaven upon some of the chief fomenters of these opinions : and the lamentable death of Mrs. Hutchison : very fit for these times, here being the same errors amongst us, and acted by the same spirit : published at the instant request of sundry, by one that was an eye and ear-witness of the carriage of matters there.

Moreover, the totality of the study carrel's aboutness, can be visualized with the following pie chart:

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topic model

Noun & Verbs

Through an analysis of your study carrel's parts-of-speech, you are able to answer question beyonds aboutness. For example, a list of the most frequent nouns helps you answer what questions; "What is discussed in this collection?":

men, time, people, man, truth, peace, place, others, things, way, part, day, power, world, hee, p., church, hand, water, thing, persons, parts, hath, places, fish, manner, land, death, reason, end, ground, rest, nothing, churches, ship, none, work, times, fire, name, ▪, body, hands, house, words, religion, children, ships, night, order

An enumeration of the verbs helps you learn what actions take place in a text or what the things in the text do. Very frequently, the most common lemmatized verbs are "be", "have", and "do"; the more interesting verbs usually occur further down the list of frequencies:

is, be, was, are, were, have, had, being, made, did, make, been, come, found, called, see, came, take, do, say, sent, set, having, said, know, let, put, brought, haue, done, went, according, taken, hath, give, left, heard, given, returned, call, bring, concerning, doe, seeing, cast, saw, thought, used, caused, lay

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nouns
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verbs

Proper Nouns

An extraction of proper nouns helps you determine the names of people and places in your study carrel.

christ, god, england, church, master, lord, new, c., cotton, hath, english, captaine, mr., jesus, sea, haue, sir, mr, king, chap, indians, ●, virginia, 〉, iohn, doe, wee, ◊, thomas, gods, 〈, churches, thou, hee, christs, beene, tcp, magistrates, world, spirit, court, smith, land, ministers, countrey, minister, covenant, bay, country, yea

An analysis of personal pronouns enables you to answer at least two questions: 1) "What, if any, is the overall gender of my study carrel?", and 2) "To what degree are the texts in my study carrel self-centered versus inclusive?"

they, their, it, his, them, he, i, we, him, our, you, her, my, your, me, us, she, themselves, thy, himself, its, thee, theirs, ours, one, mine, vp, yours, ye, ●, whereof, vnto, hee, myself, em, us''d, severall, s, itself, herself, hers, ay, ''s, ''em, yee, yea, wigwam, whosoever, ut, troop''d

Below are words cloud of your study carrel's proper & personal pronouns.

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proper nouns
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pronouns

Adjectives & Verbs

Learning about a corpus's adjectives and adverbs helps you answer how questions: "How are things described and how are things done?" An analysis of adjectives and adverbs also points to a corpus's overall sentiment. "In general, is my study carrel positive or negative?"

such, many, other, great, good, more, much, true, first, little, same, civil, small, most, own, whole, new, next, long, best, spiritual, common, old, last, few, better, high, holy, able, full, present, large, former, english, particular, second, strange, false, dead, least, young, like, strong, several, excellent, sufficient, very, greater, haue, contrary

not, so, then, now, also, as, very, more, well, yet, up, there, most, much, out, here, onely, thus, therefore, never, together, first, away, forth, only, long, ever, in, sometimes, about, too, down, off, thereof, far, still, rather, over, all, no, again, even, vs, before, especially, indeed, further, once, neere, likewise

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adjectives
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adverbs

Next steps

There is much more to a study carrel than the things outlined above. Use this page's menubar to navigate and explore in more detail. There you will find additional features & functions including: ngrams, parts-of-speech, grammars, named entities, topic modeling, a simple search interface, etc.

Again, study carrels are self-contained. Download this carrel for offline viewing and use.

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