Authority, as Greg pointed out, is a comparative term.[1] As has long been recognized,
Richard
II belongs to a group of Folio texts printed from quarto copy, from
an
exemplar of an early print which had been annotated by reference to an
authoritative manuscript (presumably the promptbook). It therefore derives
from a text itself derivative, but sprinkled, so to speak, with
authority—or
at least with potential authority.
An editor's job is to isolate those sprinklings of authority from the
surrounding drought of derivation and corruption. This can be done only by
first determining where the Folio simply reproduces an earlier printed text,
and then by analysing the pattern and the nature of its departures from that
text. In the case of Richard II, there is general agreement that
F for
the most part reproduces the text of Q3 (1598); it has, however, been
suggested that for two passages (4.1.154-318, 5.5.19-5.6.52; TLN
2074-2243, 2685-2849) F was set up from a copy of Q5 (1615). The claims
for a direct bibliographical dependence upon Q5 are considered (and
rejected) in the first two sections of this paper. In the third section we turn
to
an analysis of the Folio's departures from its Q3 copy in an attempt to
discern where the manuscript was consulted; in the fourth we consider what
authority should be accorded the readings apparently taken from that
manuscript; in the fifth, we analyse in
detail the textual problem of the so-called 'abdication episode' (present in
Q4, Q5, and F, but not in Q1). As a result of these interrelated
investigations, we offer, finally, a newly comprehensive account of the
relationship between Q1, F1, and the manuscripts which must have lain
behind them.
