King Lear: Quarto vs. Folio - Essay Example

As a result, Edgar (who was currently the Duke of Gloucester) was left in charge. In the Folio, the final speech was spoken by Edgar. We can see this as compensation or consolation for Lear bearing in mind the Edgar was his godson. In the Quarto, however, it is Albany who makes the last speech and in consequence becomes the new ruler of the kingdom. This original attribution has been abided by since the times of Alexander Pope. As the Quarto was the initial version of King Lear, we think of it as Shakespeare himself having changed his mind.

We can assume that he wanted to bring into perspective, two different scenarios at the theatre. In the first scenario, the words Kent’s refusal of the half share of kingdom would have been accompanied by some signals showing refusal, such avoiding Edgar’s part. In the second scenario, the staging of Edgar’s final speech would have been done as a sign that Albany’s offer has been accepted. These alterations to the culmination of the play mark the climax of the author’s understated but comprehensive revision of the roles of Edgar and Albany in the Quarto and the Folio versions of King Lear.

Another major difference between the two versions is that the Quarto has almost 300 lines that are not found in the Folio; the Folio has more than 100 lines that are not found in the Quarto; there are over 800 verbal variations in the parts of the play that is shared by the two texts. Logic advocates that the Quarto was the first version of the play and Folio the second. The textual variations present to us a unique opportunity to perceive the plays by way of working scripts. Critics claim that King Leah is not a rebuilding of Shakespeare’s works but rather a reconstruction by editors.

For example, Shakespeare would have been highly challenged in regard to the following exchanges as found in the conventional editorial tradition: LEAR: What’s he that hath so much thy place mistook To set thee here? KENT: It is both he and she, Your son and daughter. LEAR: No. KENT: Yes. LEAR: No, I say. KENT: I say, yea. LEAR: No, no; they would not. KENT: Yes, they have. LEAR: By Jupiter, I swear, no. KENT: By Juno, I swear, ay. LEAR: They durst not do’t, They could not, would not do’t. (2.2.

189-200, conflated) There are four negative blasts here from Lear, and four affirmations from Kent. But Shakespeare would use a different model. He always discerned, that for rhetorical impression you reiterate something three times, not four. The Quarto edition gives the original three interchanges, with the ‘By Jupiter’ line going directly into ‘they durst not do’t’. In the Folio edition however, Shakespeare introduced the idea of answering ‘By Jupiter’ with Kent’s ‘By Juno’ line.

But the line was not just added, like modern editors do: he created a new paired exchange, and compensated by removing the previous one. ‘No, no; they would not’ and ‘Yes, they have’ are omitted from the Folio. Another major difference in the two versions is seen at very mystifying moment in act three scene one (in the received editorial tradition), where Kent reports to the Gentleman on the dissection between Albany and Cornwall (3.1.17-42 in many editions). The composition half way through the speech is unconceivable and the content is conflicting: are there only French