The Textual Problem of King Lear
The first quarto of King Lear was published in 1608. (See the copies at the British Library.) In 1616 Shakespeare died; this is also the year that Ben Jonson published his Works in folio. Jonson’s decision to publish a folio is unusual, as the folio size was traditionally reserved for “important” texts (e.g., Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Vergil’s Aeneid, or the Bible). In 1623 some of Shakespeare’s friends and fellow actors published what scholars refer to as the “first folio.” It is an incomplete collection of Shakespeare’s works, but it is a tremendous cultural and literary artifact.
The first quarto of King Lear is the “History”; the version in the first folio is the “Tragedy.” The later folio version cuts about 300 lines from the quarto version, but it also adds about 100 lines to the play. There are also hundreds of lexical differences between the versions, including 850 verbal changes. And while the quarto version contained no act or scene numbers, the folio version added both.
With all the differences between Q and F, what is the relationship between these two texts of King Lear?
Scholars have traditionally assumed that Q was printed from a promptbook—a performance text of the play—or perhaps from Shakespeare’s holograph; F, they believed, was printed from a corrected copy of the play. With these assumptions in mind, editors have attempted to conflate the versions of King Lear, since both were obviously imperfect, and somehow approach a more “perfect” version of the play, perhaps closer to Shakespeare’s intended version. These assumptions also lead one to the conclusion that Shakespeare never returned to a play after he had sold it to an acting company.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, among others, began developing a theory that Q and F are in fact different plays. Some of the textual variants between the two versions cannot be reconciled. (For example, Gloucester, in 1.1 of F, refers to “the division of the kingdom,” while in Q he refers to “the division of the kingdoms.”) Wells and Taylor’s theory led them to publish King Lear in parallel for their Oxford Shakespeare. In the past twenty years, their view has become widely accepted—although there are many who disagree with the premise and even more who disagree with their reasoning.
Being aware of the textual problem of King Lear is important, even if you disagree with Wells and Taylor. Knowing that Shakespeare revised his plays—perhaps in collaboration with his acting company—enriches our understanding of the early modern theater. We also need to be aware that the works of even a “genius” like Shakespeare didn’t magically appear in the form in which we have them today.
Bibliography
- 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, NJ: Princeton UP, 1980.
- Wells, Stanley, Gary Taylor, John Jowett, and William Montgomery. William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987.
- Werstine, Paul. “Narratives about Printed Shakespeare Texts: ‘Foul Papers’ and ‘Bad Quartos.’” Shakespeare Quarterly 41 (1990): 65-86.