Act and Scene Divisions
The Folio's introduction of act and scene divisions supplies the final
piece in the jigsaw. They were almost certainly marked on to the quarto
copy. The theatrical significance of act divisions remains in some doubt, but
it is most probable that by 1610 the King's Men's promptbooks were
regularly marked with act divisions.[30]
There is no particular reason to doubt the validity of F's act division. (No
one will doubt that the beginning of Act 4 at least is correctly positioned.)
The scene divisions, on the other hand, include a generally-recognized
error.
Despite Q1's direction 'Exeunt.
Manet sir Pierce
Exton,
&c.' (2651-52), almost all editors agree that the required
staging is
indicated in F: 'Exeunt. | Enter Exton and
Seruants'. But F
does not introduce a scene break, instead continuing its scene 5.3, and so
misnumbering 5.5 and 5.6 as 5.4 and 5.5. This single anomaly can scarcely
be unconnected with the form of
the direction in Q.
The evidence of Richard II itself is here supported by
an
examination of other texts. The Folio contains eight plays set from lightly
annotated quarto copy. One of these (Romeo and Juliet) has
no act
or scene divisions, and shows few if any signs of promptbook
consultation;[31] five (Love's
Labour's
Lost, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer
Night's
Dream, Much Ado about Nothing, and Titus
Andronicus), which were collated against theatrical manuscripts,
provide
act divisions only.[32] In
Titus and
Dream the text has been adjusted to accommodate an act
division,
which therefore seems likely to have come from the promptbook;
the authority of the division in
Love's Labour's Lost has been
doubted, but the act divisions in the two other comedies are at least
acceptable and may derive from theatrical manuscripts. On the basis of
these
six other plays we might expect consultation of a promptbook to result in
the
provision of act divisions, but not scene-breaks. Only
Richard
II and
I Henry IV provide act
and scene divisions; as
with the other
texts, the act divisions are sensible, but in both plays an error in the scene
divisions results from a misleading quarto direction. In
I Henry
IV,
after TLN 2890 Q5 (following Q1) has the stage direction,
Here they embrace, the Trumpets sound, the King enters with
his
power,
alarme to the Battell: then enter Dowglas, and Sir Walter
Blunt.
Whether or not one accepts Rowe's interpolation of '
and
exeunt' after
'
embrace', the stage is evidently cleared at some point before
the
entrance of Douglas and Blunt; all editors mark a new scene (5.3). The
Folio
omits '
Here', substitutes '
entereth' for
'
enters' and
'
alarum vnto' for '
alarme to', but does not
supply the missing
scene division, and consequently mis-numbers the two following scenes. As
with
Richard II, it seems fairly evident that scene divisions
were not
marked in the annotator's manuscript, and that the annotator failed to mark
a
division here because he did not see the need for one. He could easily have
been misled by the fact that Q5 does not contain the keyword
'
Exeunt' or '
Exit'; either the manuscript also
failed to supply
the word, or he failed to transfer it from that source.
