University of Virginia Library

I

THE EDITOR OF ROMEO AND JULIET MUST CONSIDER three general questions regarding the nature and relationship of the two editions preserving collateral texts, the First Quarto of 1597 and the Second Quarto of 1599.[1] The first is the nature of the text printed in Q1. Happily this question is not an issue, for it is now generally agreed that the Q1 text represents a memorial reconstruction deriving ultimately from the promptbook version of Shakespeare's company.[2] The second is the nature of the manuscript authority behind Q2. This question is likewise not an issue, for it is also generally agreed that Q2 derives mainly from Shakespeare's "foul papers," from which the promptbook of Shakespeare's company had in turn been ultimately derived.[3] The third question is the nature and extent of Q1's influence upon the text of Q2 during the printing of that edition. In considering this "contamination" one must further distinguish between two problems. On the evidence of virtually complete agreement in text and of a number of "bibliographical links" between the two editions (such as the Q1-2 concurrence in italic type for the Nurse's speeches in I.iii and in prose turnovers at I.iii.4 and 14), critics agree that a section of Q2 on signatures B3-4 was printed with only inadvertent "substantive" alteration directly from signatures B3-4v of Q1, possibly because a leaf was missing from the foul papers.[4] The

"reprinted passage" is usually defined as extending through I.iii.35 in the Globe numbering, whereas its beginning has been variously located at I.ii.46, 54, and 58. (I shall suggest below that it probably begins at line 52.) In any case, no critic disputes the general proposition that a Q2 passage of some ninety lines was printed directly from Q1 without editorial alteration.

The second (and major) problem is posed by a number of scattered bibliographical links between Q1 and Q2 beyond the limits of the reprinted passage in I.ii-iii. This "sporadic" contamination is also granted by all critics, although they disagree on the question of how it occurred. Broadly speaking, two hypotheses have been developed. The first, implicit in Sir Walter Greg's position since 1942 and adopted by the present writer in the revised Yale edition (1954), postulates compositor's consultation of an editorially unaltered exemplar of Q1 during the process of typesetting Q2 directly from Shakespeare's foul papers.[5] The second, proposed by Miss Greta Hjort in 1926 and adopted by Professors Dover Wilson and Duthie in the New Cambridge edition (1955), postulates an editor's annotation of an exemplar of Q1 by systematic reference to the foul papers (with the addition where necessary of occasional transcribed insert slips) so as to bring the text of the quarto into substantive agreement with that of Shakespeare's manuscript; and the consequent use of such an annotated First Quarto as sole copy for Q2.[6] Clearly it is of some interest to establish which of these two hypotheses is probably correct, for the editorial implications of annotated-quarto copy are quite different from those of compositor's consultation.

For example, if the contamination of Q2 was effected by means of annotated-quarto copy, the case for a given Q2 reading (excepting both presumptive Q2 misprints of Q1 and Q2 readings that might have been derived from insert slips) would necessarily be strengthened rather than weakened by Q1 variance, for the inference would be that the Q2 editor noticed an erroneous Q1 reading, deleted it, and wrote

into the quarto copy the correct reading, which he derived from the foul papers and which was accordingly transmitted to Q2. Thus a modern editor might not logically adopt a Q1 variant in a supposedly annotated section of the Q2 text, for the fact of Q2 variance from Q1 would guarantee error in the Q1 reading. The New Cambridge editors nevertheless adopt a number of such Q1 variants.[7] On the other hand, if the contamination of Q2 was effected by compositor's consultation of Q1, an editor might logically accept any Q1 variant from Q2 that he judged to be correct. (Since Q2, if set mainly from manuscript, would presumably contain its share of handwriting errors (in addition to compositor's memorial errors), the Q1 variant to a given Q2 "graphic" error (like that to a given Q2 memorial error) would stand a chance of preserving the authoritative reading.) Correspondingly, we should expect to find perhaps fewer residual "common errors" if the contamination of Q2 was effected by compositor's consultation than if by annotated-quarto copy, although an editor would of course be equally free to emend a suspected common error in the one case as in the other. Here it should be noticed that the New Cambridge editors detect and emend only four errors common to Q1 and Q2 apart from the three occurring in the reprinted passage.[8] By way of contrast, in the New Cambridge edition of Richard III (1954), a play supposedly set in the First Folio from annotated-quarto copy, Professor Wilson emends over sixty errors common to the Folio and First Quarto texts.

To be sure, it must be initially conceded that, because of the inferential nature of most biblio-textual investigation, neither hypothesis is capable of positive demonstration.[9] However, the hypothesis of annotated-quarto copy requires the postulation of at least three improbable circumstances. According to Professor Wilson's article (full details are not given in the New Cambridge edition), the Q2 editor acted in the service of Thomas Creede, the printer of Q2, but since the foul papers were not fully available the work of annotation and transcription had to be done at the theater rather than in Creede's shop (Shakespeare Survey, pp. 90, 96). Therefore Wilson's hypothesis is based on the following propositions. (1) The Lord Chamberlain's Men sold the text of Romeo and Juliet for publication but refused to provide a manuscript for use as printer's copy, even though the withheld manuscript was Shakespeare's foul papers and therefore of no theatrical value to the company. (2) When Creede's editor arrived at the theater to prepare copy for Q2, the Chamberlain's Men forced him to work from the foul papers although the company's promptbook should have been readily available to simplify his task. And (3) the Q2 editor took the trouble to prepare annotated-quarto copy when it would have been hardly more labor to make a full transcript of the foul papers, for in addition to annotated Q1 pages and insert slips attached thereto, about 75% of the "quarto" copy for Q2 would have consisted of "insert slips" transcribed from the foul papers and inserted between the leaves of the quarto.[10] Furthermore, the hypothesis of annotated-quarto copy is clearly incompatible with the evidence of the texts in Q1 and Q2. On

the other hand, the hypothesis of compositor's consultation is simple, not improbable, and entirely compatible with that evidence.[11]