University of Virginia Library

The earliest known texts of King Lear exist in essentially two different forms, the 1608 First Quarto (Q) and the 1623 Folio edition (F).[1] Until

recently editors interested in preparing critical editions of King Lear attempted to reconstruct a text that reflected the author's intentions more accurately than either surviving text. Editors drew on physical evidence from both texts for assistance when emending errors and when trying to distinguish between authorial and non-authorial alterations. Traditional editorial practice included the consolidation of variant readings from the separate texts if, after examining the physical evidence of those texts, an editor concluded that a judicious consolidation would further the attempt to recover Shakespeare's work.

Much of the textual scholarship on King Lear in the last decade, however, has advocated a presentation of two different versions, rather than a consolidation of the early texts.[2] Gary Taylor, Michael Warren, Stanley Wells and others have argued that Q and F are not defective versions of a lost text, but "two separate and successive stages in the creation of King Lear" (Division v). Q "represents the play as Shakespeare originally wrote it," but having discerned its theatrical shortcomings he "substantially revised it" (CW 1027).[3] The final version is the theatrically superior Folio Lear. In order to "preserve the separate integrity" of each text, the editors of the Oxford Shakespeare present two versions of King Lear with original spelling and punctuation, one based on the First Quarto and the other based on the Folio text (TC 510). The Oxford editors do not include a consolidated King Lear in The Complete Works since, as Stanley Wells argues, "conflation muddies our understanding of Shakespeare's artistry" (Division 17-19).

It is my view, however, that conflation on the one hand and a presentation of different versions on the other are not mutually exclusive alternatives. All texts, particularly dramatic ones, are the products of many influences, authorial and non-authorial. In the case of the Lear texts, editors have focused primarily on contributions from the author, the printing-house, and the theater. If an editor's aim is to distinguish authorial material from non-authorial material and then construct one or more critical texts that come closest to Shakespeare's, then, I will argue, a judicious consolidation of major passages from both early texts is still necessary, if those passages show evidence of non-authorial influence.[4]

Comparison of readings between Q and F shows that some of the most problematic variants occur in the central and final acts. In this essay I will call attention to sources of non-authorial alterations in these portions of the texts in order to demonstrate why it is necessary for editors to draw on and sometimes consolidate readings from both texts of King Lear when trying to construct an authorial edition. First, I will examine two press variants in sheet G of the First Quarto (sheet G corresponds to III.iii. through III.vii. in Folio Lear). Second, I will argue for including both the Q version of III.vi. (Lear on the heath, including the mock trial) and the F version of V.iii. (the final moments of the play) in any edition of King Lear that is offered primarily as an attempt to recover Shakespeare's work. The presentation of separate texts by the Oxford editors is one way of attempting to recover the author's intentions and, as they have argued, it is the way that they think is most accurate historically. I will argue, however, that the Oxford editors do not fully account for the possibility of non-authorial influence in their treatment of the central and final acts, so that their presentations of these portions of the texts are more inaccurate than judicious consolidations of them.

My call for consolidated presentations of certain readings from Q and F is not incompatible with the goal of trying to reconstruct the historical process of an author's work.[5] Whereas the Oxford editors argue that authorial revision is the primary source of alteration in these scenes, I direct attention to non-authorial influences that have contributed to what we find in the extant texts. My argument does not reinforce the concept of a "definitive" or ideal authorial text, nor does it contradict the concept of the text as a product of many influences, including the possibility of authorial revision. If an editor's attempt to establish an authorially intended text leads to discoveries about non-authorial influences, these discoveries do not rule out, of course, the possibility of authorial revision in other portions of the text or in other works by the same author.[6]