University of Virginia Library

IV

There are two major differences between the textual circumstances surrounding the mock trial scene and those connected with the substantive alterations in the final scene of the play. First, it is F, not Q, that offers the superior reading of the ending. Second, theatrical intervention is generally not held responsible for the differences between the two texts in the last scene. Although there are many differences between Q and F throughout the final scene, my analysis will focus on the concluding moments of the play (Q: L4r; F: ss3r).

In both texts, Lear enters carrying the dead Cordelia. He charges the "men of stones" to look upon the horror, for if he had their eyes and tongues he would use them "so that heaven's vault should crack" (Riverside V.iii.258-260). During this last scene, he turns in torment between hope that perhaps she still lives and conviction that she is "dead as earth" and will come no more—dead for no reason while dogs, horses and rats live (Riverside V.iii.262, 307). Here, as in the mock trial scene, what an audience may perceive as clinical madness is Lear's display of an intense, undying charge for justice and a profound revelation of what it means to be human. It is at the moment of greatest anguish that the two texts, Q and F, diverge. Q reads as follows (including in the absence of spacing between some words):

And Folio, According to the Oxford editors, the Q reading reflects Shakespeare's original thoughts and the F reading his improved revision. Rethinking his initial work, the author added one "no," and two "nevers"; reassigned Lear's line in Q, "Breake hart, I prethe breake" to Kent; substituted "Do you see this? Looke on her? Looke her lips, / Looke there, looke there" for Lear's "O, o, o, o"; and then to end the play gave Edgar the final speech rather than Albany. Textual and bibliographical evidence suggests, however, that what was Shakespeare's reading in Q's copy was something other and longer than what is in Q—perhaps what is extant in F. Furthermore, that same evidence indicates that compositorial error and printing house negligence, rather than the author's second thoughts, are responsible for Q's alternate reading.

By studying the First Quarto in conjunction with those works printed by Nicholas Okes before, during, and after Lear, Peter Blayney calculated that the printing of Lear began on 10 December 1607, was interrupted by the Christmas holidays, and was completed sometime in early January (85). It was the first play-quarto Okes had ever printed and, according to Blayney, it is the only play-quarto "which can fairly claim a place among Okes's half-dozen worst-printed books of 1607-1609" (184-185). Blayney compares Okes' work with other seventeenth-century printers and concludes that "there were printers whose worst was worse than Okes's—but not very many, and not much worse" (29; emphasis Blayney's). Moreover, the seriatim method that Okes chose to set Q "caused unprecedented problems of type-supply" (184).[16]

The Oxford editors have acknowledged that Okes' inexperience, his shortage of type, the incompetence of his compositors, and an illegible or confusing manuscript may account for peculiarities in punctuation and lineation.[17] They do not go so far as to argue, however, that the variations in the final scene are the result of Okes' printing-house deficiencies—that the reading in F may have existed in the printer's copy for Q but was unintentionally left out due to carelessness or deliberately omitted to save space and conserve type.

When setting seriatim, or in reading order, usually the inner forme of a sheet will be printed before the outer forme, since the second, third, sixth, and seventh type-pages of the gathering will have been imposed before the outer forme (which contains the eighth type-page) has been completely set. Peter Blayney shows, however, that in the case of Q the outer forme of sheet L, the final sheet, was printed before the inner forme (217-218). Furthermore, the outer forme of sheet L contains only three pages of text; L4v (the eighth type-page) is left blank. Hence, the play ends on inner L4r, the seventh type-page of the gathering.

Blayney also tells us that the ends of L3r, L3v, L4r might have been set by a compositor other than C. In his discussion of sheet L. Blayney adds:

With this information we can reconstruct the order of events during the imposition and printing of Q's sheet L. First, compositor B set L1r of the outer forme. Next, C set L1v and L2r of the inner forme. C then set L2v and L3r of the outer forme. Having completed the imposition of outer L1r, L2v, L3r (the first, fourth, and fifth type-pages) and seeing no need for L4v—the whole text nearly completed—compositor C decided to go ahead and print outer L assuming that the remaining text could be fitted onto the last two pages of the inner form, L3v and L4r. Whatever the reason, the outer forme was in fact printed prior to the inner forme, leaving L4v blank.[18] The outer forme of sheet L having been printed, a different compositor, perhaps B, finished setting inner L3v and L4r (the sixth and seventh type-pages). The imposition of L1v, L2r, L3v, and L4r having been completed, the inner forme was then printed.

The procedure described above proves to be of pivotal importance when deciding who or what is responsible for the variations between Q and F in the final scene. What is most notable about this procedure is the drastic space problems it created when setting the end of the play. The obvious crowding of text in the final two pages of Q shows clearly that when setting inner L3v and L4r, the compositor found himself running out of room. If we examine Lear's final speech as it appears in Q (L4r), for example, we see that verse has been crowded into prose and that the compositors left little or no space between certain words such as "neuer,neuer" and "hart,I." We see also that Edgar's two split lines have been merged with the previous lines.

Since outer L had already gone through the press, the compositor, with more text to set than space allowed, had no choice but to make the necessary adjustments to complete the play on inner L4r. It is not surprising, then, that the most substantive variants, such as those in Lear's final speech, occur on L4r, the last page of text. It is altogether conceivable that the compositor omitted one "no," two "nevers," and inserted a simple "O, o, o, o" for Lear's last words, "Do you see this? Looke on her? Looke her lips, / Looke there, looke there." Furthermore, Q's assignment of "Break hart, I prethe breake" to Lear, rather than Kent, must be a compositorial error. Surely Lear has uttered his final words and is probably dead, just as the F text indicates.

In the Oxford edition of Q the editors have cleaned up the mess that is illustrated plainly in the extant text. Their version reads:

The Oxford editors' reconstruction of this scene in their edition of Q and their claim that it is authorial is incompatible with the physical evidence present in the extant text. They have inserted a "[Lear dies]" where they believe Shakespeare had originally intended the King to die, but it is just as likely—even more likely—that the compositor simply left out the proper stage direction to save space and accidentally assigned Kent's line to Lear; it is illogical for Lear to speak this line after Edgar announces he has fainted. One may argue further that the line in question rightfully belongs to Kent, a character who throughout the play has dedicated himself to the protection and service of the King. In the end that sympathy is expressed in his wish for his master's death: "Breake heart, I prythee breake." Kent's message is clear: death brings peace at last. Edgar resists letting Lear go, just as he kept his father from dying at the cliffs of Dover: "Look vp my Lord," he says to Lear. Remaining loyal to his master, however, Kent insists that Edgar "Vex not his ghost, O let him passe."[19]

A textual and bibliographical examination of the central and final acts provides no evidence that Shakespeare is responsible for the alterations I have discussed in this essay—that he revised "come on bee true" to "come vnbutton heere," omitted thirty-one lines of the mock trial, or altered the play's ending. Indeed, a problem in the Lear texts is that we often have difficulty identifying who or what is responsible for many of the variant readings. Recent scholarship has frequently resolved this difficulty by emphasizing authorial revision: we have no clear evidence that alterations are not authorial. But authorial

revision is only one possible source of alteration. In this essay, I have argued that even if Shakespeare revised other portions of Lear (and other plays), physical evidence does exist which suggests that he was not responsible for the variations between the early texts in these key scenes of King Lear.

The extant texts of King Lear record a history of many influences, including authorial creation and the publication process. But if an editor's aim is to distinguish authorial material from non-authorial material—such as alterations made by a compositor, proof-reader, or through theatrical intervention—and attempt to construct a critical text that comes closest to Shakespeare's, it is necessary to draw on both early texts for physical evidence and to consolidate certain readings. A judicious consolidation of the passages I have discussed in this essay does not falsify Shakespeare's art. Instead, such treatment offers more accurate presentations than does either extant text or the Oxford editions of those texts.

In naming their book The Division of the Kingdoms; Shakespeare's Two Versions of King Lear, Gary Taylor and Michael Warren selected the unrevised Quarto reading of Gloucester's words for their title: ". . . the diuision of the kingdomes [plural] . . ." (Q: B1r)—a reading that makes no sense as far as Lear's purpose is concerned. Let us pay closer heed, then, to the rendition of that same passage in Folio Lear: ". . . the diuision of the Kingdome, / it appeares not . . ." (F: qq2).

Selected Bibliography

• Berger, Thomas L. Review of The Oxford Shakespeare. Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography New Series 3 (1989): 139-170.
• Blayney, Peter W. M. The Texts of King Lear and their Origins. Volume I: Nicholas Okes and the First Quarto. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1982.
• Carroll, William C. "New Plays vs. Old Readings: The Division of the Kingdoms and Folio Deletions in King Lear." Studies in Philology 85 (1988): 225-244.
• Chambers, E. K. William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford UP, Clarendon, 1930. 463-470. 2 vols.
• Doran, Madeleine. The Text of King Lear. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1931.
• Duthie, George Ian. Elizabethan Shorthand and the First Quarto of King Lear. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1949.
• Greg, W. W. The Editorial Problem in Shakespeare; A Survey of the Foundations of the Text. 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1954.
• ___. "The Function of Bibliography in Literary Criticism Illustrated in a Study of the Text of King Lear." Neophilologus 18 (1933): 241-262.
• Hammond, Paul. Review of William Shakespeare, The Complete Works: Original-Spelling Edition, eds. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, and William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion, by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, with John Jowett and William Montgomery. Seventeenth Century Journal 3 (1988): 85-107.
• Hinman, Charleton. "Introduction." The Norton Facsimile: The First Folio of Shakespeare. New York: W. W. Norton, 1968. ix-xxvii.
• Howard-Hill, T. H. "Modern Textual Theories and the Editing of Plays," The Library; The Transactions of the Bibliographical Society 6th ser. 11 (1989): 89-115.
• ___. "Playwrights' Intentions and the Editing of Plays," Text; Transactions of the Society for Textual Scholarship 4, D. C. Greetham and W. Speed Hill, eds. (New York: AMS Press, 1988): 269-278.

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• ___. "The Problem of Manuscript Copy for Folio King Lear." The Library; The Transactions of the Bibliographical Society 6th ser. 4 (1982): 121-124.
• Iappolo, Grace. Revising Shakespeare. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1991.
• Kirschbaum, Leo. "The Origin of the Bad Quartos." PMLA 60 (1945): 697-715.
• McGann, Jerome J. A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1992. Originally published in 1983, Chicago: U of Chicago Press.
• ___, ed. Textual Criticism and Literary Interpretation. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1985.
• McKerrow, Ronald B. An Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965.
• McLaverty, James. "The Concept of Authorial Intention in Textual Criticism." The Library; The Transactions of the Bibliographical Society 6th ser. 6 (1984): 121-138.
• Petti, Anthony G. English Literary Hands from Chaucer to Dryden. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1977.
• Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works: Original Spelling Edition. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, eds. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986.
• ___. The Historie of King Lear. Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto; A Facsimile Edition of Copies Primarily From the Henry E. Huntington Library. Michael J. B. Allen and Kenneth Muir, eds. Berkeley: U of California Press, 1981. 664-703.
• ___. The Tragedie of King Lear. The Norton Facsimile: The First Folio of Shakespeare. Charleton Hinman, ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1968. 801-817.
• ___. The Tragedy of King Lear. The Riverside Shakespeare. G. Blakemore Evans, ed. Boston: Houghton, 1974. 1249-1305.
• Shillingsburg, Peter L. "Text as Matter, Concept, and Action," Studies in Bibliography 44 (1991): 31-82.
• Smidt, Kristian. "The Quarto and the Folio Lear: Another Look at the Theories of Textual Deviation." English Studies 45 (1964): 149-162.
• Stone, P. W. K. The Textual History of King Lear. London: Scolar Press, 1980.
• Tanselle, G. Thomas. A Rationale of Textual Criticism. Philadelphia: U of Penn. Press, 1989.
• ___. "Textual Criticism and Deconstruction," Studies in Bibliography 43 (1990): 1-33.
• ___. "Textual Criticism and Literary Sociology," Studies in Bibliography 44 (1991): 83-143.
• ___. Textual Criticism and Scholarly Editing. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1990.
• Taylor, Gary. "The War in King Lear." Shakespeare Studies (1980): 27-34.
• Taylor, Gary, and Michael Warren, eds. The Division of the Kingdoms; Shakespeare's Two Versions of King Lear. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983.
• Urkowitz, Steven. Shakespeare's Revision of King Lear. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980.
• Walker, Alice. Textual Problems of the First Folio; Richard III, King Lear, Troilus & Cressida, 2 Henry IV, Hamlet, Othello. Cambridge: UP, 1953.
• Warren, Michael J. The Complete King Lear 1608-1623. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California Press, 1989.
• ___. The Parallel King Lear 1608-1623, Part 1 of The Complete King Lear. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California Press, 1989.
• ___. "Quarto and Folio King Lear and the Interpretation of Albany and Edgar." Shakespeare: Pattern of Excelling Nature. David Bevington and Jay Halio, eds. Newark, Del.: U of Delaware Press, 1978. 95-107.
• Warren, Roger. "The Folio Omission of the Mock Trial: Motives and Consequences." The Division of the Kingdoms; Shakespeare's Two Versions of King Lear. Gary Taylor and Michael Warren, eds. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983. 45-57.
• Wells, Stanley and Gary Taylor, with John Jowett and William Montgomery. William Shakespeare; A Textual Companion. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987.
• Werstine, Paul. "Folio Editors, Folio Compositors, and the Folio Text of King Lear." The Division of the Kingdoms; Shakespeare's Two Versions of King Lear. Gary Taylor and Michael Warren, eds. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983. 247-312.
• ___. "Narratives About Printed Shakespeare Texts: 'Foul Papers' and 'Bad' Quartos." Shakespeare Quarterly 41 (1990): 65-86.