King Lear: Quarto vs. Folio

Michael Warren analyses the implication of the change in the speaker of this last speech in his essay “Quarto and Folio King Lear and the Interpretation of Albany and Edgar”

• Two main arguments regarding the origin of the Quarto:
• reported text
• "derives from Shakespeare's foul papers"
• The Folio, published after Shakespeare’s death by two members of Shakespeare’s company, given larger authority
• King Lear first performed in court, 1606
• what stage of the play's composition does the Quarto represent?
• Steven Urowitz: “the Quarto text is at least an approximation of Shakespeare’s draft of the play before it was adapted for the stage”
• Gary Taylor: “the play did reach performance in its earlier version”

Textual Problems of King Lear:

Comparing the Quarto & the Folio

the Multiple-Text Thesis

the Quarto, 1608

• Wells's argument: Q & F are two diff. versions of the play. He sees F as a deliberate rewriting of Q by Shakespeare himself
• We have a tendency of wanting to discover which one is more "real" or "ideal", but there is no valid evidence that the two versions originate from a single source
• F generally seen as a more theatrical version of the play

Questions

Anti-Conflation

Why has King Lear provided such a

textual problem for critics?

-Can you identify any problems in Wells’ argument?

• People believed that an "ideal text" would be reached by conflating the two texts (what Wells refers to as the "lost archetype" (p.15)
• If we see F as revision of Q, conflation achieves opposite
• Williams: “’The modern composite version diminishes the intensity of the action...confuses the plot line...and blurs the delicately indicated expectations’” (p.17)

Different titles:

• Quarto: The True Chronicle of the History of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughter
• Folio: The Tragedy of King Lear.

The Quarto contains 300 more lines than the Folio, whilst the Folio has 100 line that aren’t in the Quarto.

performance can change texts

Example of changes

• Walter Benjamin- Aura and the actor in “The Work of Art in Mechanical Reproduction”.
• two different versions of King Lear: the Quarto, 1608, and the Folio, 1623

• in 3.1, Kent's speech to the gentleman is different
• 3.2: the Fool's prophecy is included only in F
• 3.6: Q's mock trial and Edgar's closing soliloquy omitted from F
• 4.3 entirely cut from F
• possible reasons for changing
• characterization and casting
• emphasis on certain scenes
• adjusting the pace of the play; consolidating

Lear's Final Words

Act 4 Scene 7

Ending Speech

• in Q: “Breake hart, I prethe breake” (5.3.11)
• in F: "Looke there, looke there"
• seems a little more hopeful, of a better place where he and Cordelia will be reunited
• F version of his final speech generally seems more intense, perfect iambic pentameter, more powerful in expressing grief--the repetition of "never!"

• Role of Doctor entirely cut from Q, lines given to gentleman
• Difference in Lear’s entrance
• Perhaps starker contrast of the authority, power, the autonomy associated with Lear, and the present weak and helpless old man
• Entire omission of Gentleman and Kent’s conversation
• Not necessary to the plot

• spoken by Albany in Q, Edgar in F
• suggestive of more hope, of a new generation
• overall, Albany has become a weaker character in F
• his lines cut in many instances
• e.g. 4.2, when he expresses horror and outrage upon hearing about Gloucester's blinding
• 5.3.229 of Q, Edgar says to Albany “Here comes Kent sir.” Whereas in F, he says “Here comes Kent.” Edgar plays less of a subordinate role in F.