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Maybe this is just me, but it's a little unfair to compare to literary texts.

Humour me for a moment.

When an artist writes a song, he (or she) has constraints. Most rappers would like to rhyme the ends of their sentences. I know sometimes they don't (like poetry), but it's certainly pleasing to the ear to have that constraint. Artists endeavour to make their songs catchy, that's highly correlated with the gross sales of the product.

When an artist writes a novel, this constraint is not weighted quite as highly. I know Shakespeare wrote poetry, too, and to call me out on this comparison is entirely fair. That said, there's also an argument to be made for eye rhymes. Shakespeare used these a lot. Eye rhymes are words that don't rhyme aurally, but do rhyme visually. It's the story that pleases the reader, not necessarily its aural 'catchiness'. I probably made that word up. But Shakespeare made words up too. The point is, you knew what I meant.

At the end of the day these comparisons, while certainly interesting, should be taken with a pinch of salt. While I'm at it, this advice can easily be extrapolated to any dataset. Always understand there may be unknown correlations.



OP here: the shakespeare thing is really just a hook, food for thought rather than an academic/cultural judgement.

I also had several suggestions to use shakespeare's sonnets rather than plays, which I should have done.

and yes, this is all just pinch of salt barbership discussion :)




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