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In recent years Gary Taylor's analysis of the "bad" quarto of Henry V has sparked new interest in this First Quarto version of the play. Taylor, believing that Q Henry V preserved a deliberate theatrical abridgment, later reconstructed by reporter-actors, incorporated some of the adaptations of the Quarto in his two Oxford editions of Henry V, based primarily on the Folio.[1] Though his decision was courageous, my own analysis of the Quarto shows that his basic assumption was incorrect, for my study shows that the Quarto was reconstructed from the reporters' recollections of a version similar to the Folio, which they apparently abridged as part of a single process of reconstruction and adaptation. Rather than reconstructed from an intermediate theatrical abridgment, the First Quarto of Henry V was created from a version linked to the Folio, by actors intent on putting together an abridged version of the play—perhaps for a tour outside London, perhaps as a reading text for a patron or friend of the actors.[2] Whatever the first
My analysis of Q Henry V is based on a parallel text, assembled from photocopies of the two versions in facsimile, and a computer analysis, designed from the handmade parallel text. Section 1 presents the results of my computer-assisted analysis of possible memorial reconstruction in Q Henry V. This analysis provides clear and quantitative evidence of the memorial reconstruction theory, identifying the most likely reporters and demonstrating their knowledge of a version related to the Folio rather than an intermediate abridgment. Sections 2 and 3 consider the possibility of deliberate adaptation in Q Henry V, for though the computer-aided analysis shows that the Quarto must have been reconstructed by actors familiar with a script linked to F, key differences between the two texts suggest that Q might have been deliberately abridged, perhaps at the same time as it was reconstructed. Section 2 discusses the unusual number of reattributions—80 lines in Q Henry V —persuasive evidence of intentional adaptation by the reporters or their colleagues. Section 3 focuses on a series of arguably intentional omissions in Q as well as key structural alterations in the plot. Significantly, many of these alterations corroborate an important result of the computer-assisted analysis in reinforcing the connection of the Quarto to a script linked to the Folio version rather than an intermediate theatrical abridgment.
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