The two oldest forms of psychohistory, as genencally defined, are psychc*iography (ldiographic, qualitative, and single-case) and histonometry (nomothetic, quantitative, and multiple-case) In practice this distinction gets blurred, both because psychobiography is often nomothetic (e g , psychoanalytic) and because histonometry may work with A' = 1 After outlining the assets of single-case histonometry, a specific case is given in an analysis of the 154 sonnets of William Shakespeare These sonnets were first reliably differentiated on aesthetic success according to an archival popularity measure, and then this relative ment was predicted using content analytical measures suggested by research on artistic creativity The supenor sonnets (a) treat specific themes, (b) display considerable thematic nchness in the number of issues discussed, (c) exhibit greater linguistic complexity as gauged by such objective measures as the type-token ratio and adjective-verb quotient, and (d) feature more primary process imagery (using Martindale's Regressive Imagery Dictionary) After discussing how these results can enlarge our general understanding of artistic creativity as well as our specific appreciation of Shakespeare's creativity, the potential application of single-case histonometry to mtnnsically psychobiographical problems is examined Rather than assess contemporary subjects, personality psychologists sometimes exploit the wealth of biographical information regarding histoncal figures, especially lllustnous creators and leaders All such re-I would like to thank Donald Inn for his assistance on this project I am also grateful to Alan Elms and Mac Runyan not just for their thoughtful comments, but also for their continual willingness to discuss with me the diverse ways that psychologists can approach biography Finally, the comments of the reviewers helped me to improve the manuscnpt substantially Correspondence conceming this article should be sent to
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