Shopping-Mall Shakespeare: Quartos, Folios, and Social Difference Author(S): Leah S

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Shopping-Mall Shakespeare: Quartos, Folios, and Social Difference Author(s): Leah S. Marcus Source: The Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 2 (1995), pp. 161-178 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3817819 Accessed: 16/11/2009 14:16

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LEAHS. MARCUS

I n his groundbreakingedition of the poetryof John Donne, publishedin 1912, HerbertJ. C. Griersontook particularcare to distinguishbetween the discipline of history and his own discipline of literary criticism. "Literary history,"he asserted, "has for the historian a quite distinct interest from that which it possessesfor the student and lover of literature."The historianmay take "positiveinterest" in connecting "Donne'swit with the generaldisintegration of mediaeval thought" or in recognizing Machiavelli'sinfluence on Elizabethan drama. But for the "loverof literaturenone of these facts has any positive interest whatsoever.Donne's wit attractsor repelshim equallywhatever be its source; Tamburlaineand Iago lose none of their interestfor us though we know nothing of Machiavelli."For Grierson, the literary text's historical setting and material embodimentswere clearlyseparable from its essence-so many veils of "outworn fashions and conventions" that had to be cast off by literary scholars before a given work could be relished in its true nature.The literaryscholar "studieshis- tory that he may discount it."1 It is amusing, even astonishing, to reflect upon the ways in which our con- ceptions of the twin disciplines of literatureand history have changed in the eighty years since Grierson'spronouncement. At the time he made it, English was a relativelynew discipline, still not formally taught as such at some major universities,still in danger of being re-engulfedin the historicalphilology of the nineteenth century out of which it had only recentlyemerged. Now, eighty years later, the discipline of English has reversedGrierson's clear sense of disciplinary strengths and priorities. It is no longer the business of the literary scholar to

I wouldlike to acknowledgethe contributions of KevinSharpe, David Cressy, and other participants at the 1993Huntington Library Conference "Culture, Politics, and Society in Elizabethanand Early Stuart England,"at whichthis paper was originally delivered. Scattered material in theessay is reproducedwith permissionfrom Unediting the Renaissance: Shakespeare, Marlowe, Milton (London, 1996).

1. ThePoems ofJohn Donne, ed. HerbertJ. C. Grierson(Oxford, 1912), 2:v-vi.

HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY - 58:2 o 161 162 .~ LEAH S. MARCUS

uncover the "essential"work of literaturebeneath the veil of history. The very idea that there is such an unchanging essence to literature,as opposed to the untidyflux of history,has been discountedby literaryscholars of the lastdecade who have dismantledwhat we now scornfullyterm essentialistviews of literaturein favorof a new paradigmthat reinvestsliterature with all of the localcon- tingenciessurrounding its creationand reception.These days, we do not "study historythat we may discountit," but that we may redefinethe workof literature as alwaysand intrinsicallyhistorically situated, radically dependent for its meaningon the matrixof institutionsand ideologieswithin which it is placed at any given time. Nevertheless,we literaryscholars are arguably as devotedto certaintiesand absolutesas Griersonwas-we simply look for them in disciplinesapart from our own, especiallyin the socialsciences.2 We look to historiansto provideus with reliablemodels of the past so that we can breakthe literarywork out of its spell- bindingaura of inalterabilityand reinscribeit within one or manysituations of culturalcontingency that somehow feel more real to us than the appealsto "uni- versalhuman nature" and "experience"that felt so realto Grierson. The New Historicism is particularlynoteworthy for its essentializationof his- toricalcontingencies through its use (or abuse)of the "initialanecdote"-a brief, strikinghistorical narrative that begins an essayand servesas a "ground,"almost in the musicalsense of the term, upon which arabesquesof interpretationand deconstructionare playedin nearinfinite variation. But for most New Histor- icists,history is synchronic:the grounditself is positedas stableand reliable even thoughits significationmay be perceivedas multiplerather than single, and even thoughour senseof its meaningmay alter-indeed is likelyto do so-during the courseof a givenessay. Where Grierson turned to literaturefor a refugefrom the vicissitudesof history,literary critics are now moreinclined to usehistory as a stable jumping-off point into the vicissitudesof literature. Historians of the early modern era frequentlyuse literaturein the same way thatwe literaryscholars use the historicalanecdote and historical data: as a device forconfirming and anchoring meaning. Even historians who arestrongly aware of the mediatednature of literarytexts are prone to cite them as striking,concrete illustrationsof an interpretationthey are puttingforth-a frozenimage of the realitythey want to posit.We each use the otherdiscipline to confera kind of

2. The context of the conferenceat which this paperwas deliveredled me to focus on the relationsbetween literarystudy and history,as opposedto anthropologyand sociology,although these two disciplinesare as prominentin the field of literarystudies as historyis. - QUARTOS, FOLIOS, AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCE 163

truthvalue upon our own thatwe arenot willingto grantour discipline within its own methodologicalterms. Indeed, that tendency may be one of the fewclear dis- ciplinarymarkers left within the largerfield of earlymodern studies: if we trust literature,we mustbe historians;if we trusthistory, we mustbe literarycritics. HereI wouldlike to concentrateon an interestingarea in whichthe collab- orationof the two disciplinesis particularlyrewarding, and in which they need to cooperatemuch morethan they have-that is, the new field of textualstudies that investigatesthe historicallysituated nature of textual production (whethermanuscript or printedmaterial) and textual alteration over time. As literarycritics have done untilvery recently, historians of the earlymodern era have reliedon the standardeditions of literaryworks of the Elizabethanand Stuart era as thoughthey offered transparent windows on the age,unmediated access to the mindsand moresof the culture.Given the growthwithin the disciplineof literatureof a new textualstudies-or, as I preferto think of it, a "newphilology," becausein manyways we arereviving a nineteenth-centuryphilological vision of the interpenetrationof literatureand history-that sense of transparencyhas becomeincreasingly occluded. The new philologycan be considereda branchof the new internationalmovement studying the "historyof the book."It takesa firmlyrevisionist stance toward the mainstreamtwentieth-century editorial tradition, investigatingthe waysin whichthe materialtexts of a workof literature havealtered over time and reinvestingthem with a historicalcontingency that Grierson-and mosttwentieth-century editors-have soughtto lift themout of. ForGrierson, history was to be studiedin orderto be discounted.We needhis- toriansto help us study differencesamong earlyversions of Shakespeareand Marloweand Donne, so thatwe will not be temptedto discountthe phenome- non of historicaldifference among variant early texts. WhatI wouldlike to do hereis consideralternative early versions of canoni- cal Renaissancetexts that the editorialtradition has suppressed (and suppressed is not too stronga term).3How canboth literary scholars and historians cast offa set of editorialconventions that have causedus passivelyto receiveour standard

3. I am by no meansthe firstto take an interestin such matters;see, for example,Gary Taylor and Michael Warren,eds., TheDivision of theKingdoms: Shakespeare's Two Versions of KingLear (Oxford, 1983); Random Cloud [RandallMcLeod], "The Marriageof Good and Bad Quartos,"Shakespeare Quarterly 33 (1952): 421-31; StevenUrkowitz, Shakespeares Revision ofKing Lear (Princeton, N.J., 1980); and ArthurMarotti, Manuscript,Print, and theEnglish Renaissance Lyric (Ithaca, N.Y., 1994). Among these proponentsof the new philology,I am perhapsthe one most interestedin the historicaland culturalinterpretation of alterna- tive texts. 164 ' LEAH S. MARCUS

Renaissanceauthors alreadyimprinted with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century tastesand culturalassumptions? I am less interestedfor the momentin offering answersthan in openingup discussionabout the meaningand significance of the textualinstability that is muchmore the normfor literatureof the earlymodern erathan the exception.4 Until fairlyrecently, there has been significant agreement about some formal featuresof one of our favoritecultural (and culture-confirming)rituals: atten- dance at a performanceof Shakespeare.The performancetext can certainlybe cut (and usuallyis), but it needsto preservea certainlength and magnitude.Even MidsummerNights Dream cannot be successfullyperformed in forty-fivemin- utes; too much will be lost. Similarly,we toleratea degreeof experimentationand modernization,so long as Shakespeare'selevation of languageand dramatic actionis not altogethereffaced. All but one of his playsfocus on the actionsof persons of "quality,"and we associate that quality with Shakespearehimself, whosevery name ("Shake-speare") connotes martial valor, even though the man wasof relativelyhumble origin. Despite a significantcurrent of Bard-bashingin recentyears, Shakespeare is enshrinedas one of ourmajor cultural icons: we have come to expect a certain decorum in connection with his name and his poetry, an experienceof culturalenrichment and elevation. But what are we to do if we encounter printed Shakespeareantexts from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries that are too short to be decently "Shakespeare,"or too "low"and "popular"to be properlyelevating? Even to use the termpopular is to beg a numberof questionsI wouldlike to examine.These "low"Shakespearean texts have, for most of our century,been called "bad" quartos.They are earlyquarto versions of some of the plays that twentieth- century editors have dismissed-nay, suppressed-as corrupt, contaminated copies without any intrinsic merit. In Texas,where I live and teach,there is an annualdrama contest in which highschools vie fora statetitle by performingforty-five-minute versions of major plays.Often they perform Shakespeare plays that, if the cuttingis skillfullymade, survivethe diminutionquite nicely.The movementtoward "short Shakespeare" is not exclusivelyAmerican. There is at least one British company currentlyper- formingshort versions of Shakespearein casualsettings that do not requirethe elaborateritual of full-dressand full-length performance. On theAmerican cable

4. Two of the examplesthat follow-Hamlet and TheMerry Wives of Windsor-aretreated in greaterdetail in Uneditingthe Renaissance. QUARTOS, FOLIOS, AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCE ^ 165

station HBO, a series of cartoon versions of Shakespeare,including Hamlet, has been presentedrecently. Some of those who have seen these cartoons have pro- nounced them a success, although all such condensations suffer the social and intellectualstigma of having defaced one of our majorcultural monuments. But "defaced"versions of the plays-"Shopping-Mall Shakespeare,"we might say, tying them to "low"or at least tainted aspects of modern American culture- have in fact long existed, although they have not been acknowledged as Shakespeareby the editorial tradition It now appearsquite likely that the "bad"quartos of Shakespeare-offering more streamlinedversions of the plots, many fewer words, and often different patternsof action-may be, like such modern performances,designed for performance on tour, in guildhallsand inns ratherthan in establishedtheaters. These versionsmay have been alteredby the Bardhimself ratherthan the meddling out- siders posited by advocates of the "contamination"theory of the bad quartos. Although many scholarsworking on these quartos would like to posit them as always reliably Shakespearean,another possibility is that the bad quartos offer source plays that were then rewrittenby Shakespeare,perhaps in collaboration with others. But even if, as the dominant twentieth-centurytheory would have it, the bad quartos are Shakespeareplays cut down and rewrittenby others-lesser members of the company or even its hired men-they should still be of strong interestto historiansand historicallyminded literarycritics as registersof cultural difference. Many questions about the dating of Shakespeare'splays have been reopenedwith the revaluationof the bad quartos. Here I consider textual varia- tions that the new philology is beginning to reconceptualizeas Jacobeanor very late Elizabethanoverlays upon earlierElizabethan materials. We might start out by considering the variation in titles between the early quartoversion of Shakespeare'sHenry VI part 2 and the 1623 First Folio version of the play.Through much of the nineteenth century,the dominant criticalopin- ion was that the quarto version was a source play for Shakespeare.But that theory allowed too little scope for twentieth-centuryworship of the Bard'screativity and originality.Through much of this century,the earlyquarto has been considered laterthan the genuine play-a corrupt copy or memorial reconstructionof Shakespeare'soriginal, which was assumed to resemble the folio version much more than it did the quarto. Now, the bad quarto is coming to be regardedas pretty "good,"and certainlyinteresting-as perhaps Shakespeare'searly version of the play,with the folio version representingauthorial revision. 166 '- LEAH S. MARCUS

In the case of Henry VI, we need to ask ourselves how much of the standard twentieth-centuryeditorial conviction that the quarto is corrupt may have come from the disorderly title of the play in its earliest, quarto publication. Standardtwentieth-century editions have establishedstrict boundariesbetween the 1594 quarto, The Firstpart of the Contentionbetwixt the twofamous Houses of Yorkeand Lancaster,with the death of the good Duke Humphrey,etc., and the 1623 folio play, The secondPart of Henry the Sixt, with the death of the Good Duke Humfrey.Even if the contents of the two versions of Henry VI part 2 were identical, in what ways would the marked change in title alter a theatrical or reading audience'sprobable perception of the two plays?5With a name empha- sizing the dynamic of civil war and a struggle between two warringhouses, The Contention arouses rather different expectations than does a Henry the Sixt named after the monarch reigning during the action of the play. The Contention appeared in a small, seemingly throwaway quarto format; Henry the Sixt was offered readersin a large, impressivefolio volume as part of a series of history plays arrangedin proper dynastic order,all named after monarchs, and all offering a clear locus for authority through their very titles. In this instance, it may have been the compilers of the First Folio-rather than Shakespearehimself-who were responsiblefor the changed titles and the greatersense of elevationand decorum in the folio version.We will probablynever know who carriedout the alterations.But the shift in title goes along with a series of subtle, pervasivedifferences between the texts themselves. In the Jack Cade episodes, for example, the rebel Cade has an element of sturdy,brutal autonomy in the quartoversion; he is more clearlya buffoon-an ape of his betters-in the folio. The rebels are more sympatheticallyportrayed in the quarto, humanized through realistictouches not included in the folio version. They have their own culture, not just a debased imitation of chivalric culture. According to a stage direction in the quarto version, the rebelscarry "long staues";in the corresponding folio passage,they instead make swordsout of laths.6Those who have joined

5. For pioneeringwork on quarto/foliodifferences, see StevenUrkowitz, "Five Women ElevenWays: ChangingImages of ShakespeareanCharacters in the EarliestTexts," in WernerHabicht, D. J. Palmer, and RogerPringle, eds., Imagesof Shakespeare:Proceedings of the ThirdCongress of the International ShakespeareAssociation, 1986 (Newark,Del., 1988), 292-304; BarbaraHodgdon, TheEnd CrownsAll: Closureand Contradictionin Shakeskpeare'sHistory (Princeton, N.J., 1991); and PhyllisRackin, Stages of History:Shakespeares English Chronicles (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990), 55-56n. My own speculationsare also indebtedto CraigBernthal's paper on the Contention,presented at the ShakespeareAssociation of Americain 1989. See also KathleenIrace's Reforming the "Bad"Quartos: Performance and Provenanceof Six ShakespeareanFirst Editions (Newark, Del., 1994). " QUARTOS, FOLIOS, AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCE 167

the rebellioninclude in the quartoversion "Dicke the Butcher,and Robinthe Sadler,and Will thatcame a wooingto ourNan lastSunday, and Harry and Tom, and Gregorythat should haue your Parnill" (p. 65 [F3r]).In the folio the names aremerely listed, with demeaningpuns on each(TLN 2340-48). The noblesin Henrythe Sixt part 2 consistentlyuse pejorative epithets for the rebelsand for the lowerclasses generally: these reinforcethe feelingthat the lowerclasses are not seenas a distinctsocial group in the folioversion of the playbut chieflyperceived throughthe eyesof theirbetters and in relation,or reaction,to them.In the quar- to Contention,Cade and his followersarticulate vague desires for liberty and social leveling;but in the folio Henrythe Sixt part 2, the rebelis portrayedmuch more specificallyas the enemyof establishedinstitutions-of the "Comomonwealth" and the "King'sCouncil," of magistrates,lawyers, and those who can write "Courthand." In both versionsof the play,Cade and his followersexecute Lord Saye not only for losing Normandybut also for establishingpaper mills, encouraging printingand literacy,and establishingjustices of the peacein everyshire. But in the quarto,there is no internalregulating mechanism to influencethe audience's perceptionof Cade's(to us) heinousand barbaricact. The responseof any segmentof the audienceto Cade'sprogram would depend entirely on theirattitudes towardthe institutionshe and his followersdespise: the unrulyapprentices who frequentedthe theatermight have heartilysympathized with Cade'sviolence againstthe slaveryof enforcedliteracy and the tyrannyof petty magistrates.In the folio, the rebels'accusations are similarbut LordSaye is allowedpolished speechesin defenseof justice,learning, and civility that cause even Cade himself to expressremorse at Saye'sexecution before putting him to death anyway.If rebelCade can sympathizewith Saye'sdefense of literacyand order,then audience sympathymay be won over,superseding social divisions not addressedin the quartoversion of the episode. We need to ask ourselveswhether the folio versionhas appearedto editors morequintessentially "Shakespearean" than the quartobecause it is moreclearly weightedtoward a visionof establishedauthority than the quarto.In the quarto, mob violencehas an odd legitimacy;in the folio, it is carnivalizedand reduced, brought within broaderinstitutional patterns that registerit as aberrant.

6. See Shakespeare'sPlays in Quarto:A FacsimileEdition of CopiesPrimarilyfrom the HenryE. Huntington Library,ed. MichaelJ. B. Allen and KennethMuir (Berkeley,Calif., and London, 1981), 65 (F3r);and TheNorton Facsimile: The First Folio of Shakespeare,ed. CharltonHinman (Londonand New York, 1968), ThroughLine Number 2320. Referencesto these two editions, the latterabbreviated "TLN," are given subsequentlyin the text. 168 -^ LEAH S. MARCUS

Certainly,if we are interestedin discussingHenry VI Part 2 s mapping out of society-particularly in terms of rebellionand its social contexts-we would do well to distinguish quarto clearly from folio and ask ourselveshard questions about the differencesbetween them.

MerryWives of Windsoris another play with a bad quarto lurking in its shadows. Whereas The Contentionhas at times achievedthe status of source play for Henry the Sixt part 2, the 1602 quartoA Mostpleasauntand excellentconceited Comedie, ofSyr Iohn Falstaffe,and the merrieWiues of Windsor has been generallyexcori- ated as an unusuallybad quarto-a late and non-Shakespeareancorruption of the "true"text. It is indeed quite different from the folio version-it is considerably shorter, and its action is differently located. The 1623 folio version of Merry Wiveshas many topical and topographicalreferences to Windsor town and castle, to the Chapel of St. George and the Order of the Garter,and to the Court sometimes resident at Windsor; in nearly every place where the folio specifies a Windsor locale, the quarto has a more generalizedlocation that could easily be London ratherthan Windsor. Falstaff'sgreat buck basket is carried"among the Whitsters in Dotchet Mead" in the folio (TLN 1363-64), merely "to the Launderers"in the quarto (p. 565 [D4r]). The charactersrun through country towns in the folio version, out of town into the fields in the quarto version. Charactersin the folio frequentlyoffer remarksanchored in their locale: "asany is in Windsor,""for ye wealth of Windsorcastle" (TLN 866, 1543). This trick of languagedoes not exist in the quartoversion. In nearlyevery case where the folio refersto some feature of rurallife in Windsor, enlivened by the presence of the court, the quarto createsa more identifiably urban equivalent, but without any mention of the court. Here I will cite only the most obvious instances.Instead of the folio'sfairy visits to "Windsor-chimnies"and the castle-which must be kept clean since "Our radiantQueene, hates Sluts and Sluttery"-the quarto has Puck sending Peane to the "countriehouses" and Pead dispatched to a less obviously ruraland Windsor setting: go you & see where Brokerssleep, And Foxe-eyedSeriants with their mase, Goe laie the Proctorsin the street, And pinch the lowsie Seriantsface: (P. 575-76 [G2v]) QUARTOS, FOLIOS, AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCE " 169

Of course,the folio'slong, elaborateblessing of the castleitself and St. George's Chapeldoes not existin the quarto: About,about: SearchWindsor Castle (Elues) within, and out. Strewgood lucke(Ouphes) on euerysacred roome, That it maystand till the perpetualldoome, In stateas wholsome,as in state'tis fit, Worthythe Owner,and the Ownerit. The seuerallChaires of Order,looke you scowre With iuyceof Balme;and eueryprecious flowre, Eachfaire Instalment, Coate, and seu'rallCrest, With LoyallBlazon, euermore be blest. And Nightly-meadow-Fairies,looke you sing Liketo the Garters-Compasse,in a ring, Th'expressurethat it beares:Greene let it be, Morefertile-fresh then all the Fieldto see: And, Hony Soit Qui Mal-y-Pence,write In Emrold-tuffes,Flowres purple, blew, and white, LikeSaphire-pearle, and richembroiderie, Buckledbelow fair Knight-hoods bending knee; Fairiesvse Flowresfor theircharacterie. (TLN 2537-55) The folioversion of MerryWives is a comedyof smalltown and rural life, steeped in rusticcustoms and topography but alsoimbued with the presenceof the royal courtand the ritualof the Orderof the Garter,whose symbols are written on the verylandscape of theWindsor countryside by the "characterie"of the fairies.The quarto version, in which such ritualsare entirelyabsent, is "lower,"more urban-closer to the patternof city or "citizen"comedy.7 The quartoversion, even thoughit may,as its title page asserts,have been performedbefore the queen, seems more orientedtoward a middlingsort of urbanpublic; the folio, towardthe courtitself. The quartois moresentimental- izingof familyrelationships: Anne and Fenton'sunion is a love matchpredating the play'saction. We neverfind out how muchAnne is "worth"in money;and it is clearthat Fenton,although initially attracted to her,as he admits,for her wealth,remains attached to her out of love. In the folio, the matchis just being

7. Pieces of this discussion have appeared in ShakespeareQuarterly 42 (1991): 168-78, and are reproduced by permission of its editor, Barbara Mowat. 170 v LEAH S. MARCUS

negotiatedas the playopens. It is madeexplicit that Anne is worth£700 plusthe inheritanceexpected from her father,and Fentonis distinctlymore mercenary throughout,less convincinglyin lovewith Anne apartfrom her money. In the folio version,significantly, Fenton is of the court-identifiedas partof the disorderlyretinue surrounding Prince Hal (laterKing Henry V). In the quarto, Fenton is of higher status than the rest of the charactersbut carriesno particular courtlyassociations. In the folio, unlikethe quarto,his unionwith Anne fits the stereotypeof the impecuniouscourtier who marriesdownward to replenishhis wastedrevenue. The quarto'ssentimental benevolence extends to othercharacters likeFord and even to Falstaffhimself: in the quartotext the fatknight, once prop- erlyreformed, is forgivenhis debtof £20 to Ford;in the foliohe is expectedto pay up. The quartoends in an explicitreconciliation between Anne and her parentsand the beginningsof a jollywedding feast. The folio is terser,less celebratory: Anne is never explicitly reconciledwith both of her parents,and it is never entirely clear thather father has forgiven her for marrying against his wishes. One wayof accountingfor the differencesbetween quarto and folio versions of MerryWives would be to posit authorialrevision for diverseaudiences, either fordifferent kinds of audiencesduring the samegeneral time period, or perhapsto meetevolving tastes as theatrical audiences lost their appetite for sentimental comedy afterthe 1590s. Certainlyboth texts show signs of revision;neither is the "original."The quarto seems to articulatea "lower"pattern of expectationsabout familylife than does the folio, and we might arguethat the moreromanticized versionof Anne and Fenton'srelationship would have appealedto an urban middle-classaudience whereas the folio'smore skeptical and mercenaryportrayal of middle-classmores might have aimed at a "higher"audience more closely iden- tified with the court. Such,at least,is the analysisof differencesbetween quarto and folio we might produceif we trustedsome of the standardparadigms about "middle-class taste" that literarycritics have borrowedfrom social historians,and not necessarilythe bestor most recentwork of socialhistorians. But to assertsuch a baldhomology betweensocial class and taste is to bega numberof questions:Did audienceslike to see theirown assumptionsmirrored in playsthey sawor read,or did theyprefer beingchallenged by difference, by the subtle voyeurism of lookinginto lives at some culturaldistance from their own? Was there enough uniformity in termsof attitudes fordifferent social groups to be reliablyidentified on the basisof theirbeliefs about thecourt, money, or marriage?The standardeditions of MerryWives are of no useto us in the pursuit of answersto such questions becausethey conflate the two texts andintermingle patterns that are relatively distinct in quartoand folio. QUARTOS, FOLIOS, AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCE w 171

Thereis a similar,if lessobvious, pattern of differencesbetween the so-called firstand secondquartos of Romeoand Juliet. The first (Q1), An Excellentcon- ceitedTragedie Of Romeoand Iuliet (1597), hasbeen labeled bad and is considerably shorter than the second, good quarto (Q2), The Most Excellentand lamentableTragedie, of Romeoand Iuliet(1599). The secondquarto is the usual copy-textfor moderneditions of the play,and it was evidentlyused as copy for the 1623 folioversion. In Q1, thereare fewer long, floweryspeeches in the mode of courtlycompliment than thereare in Q2; manyexchanges between Romeo andJuliet are drastically shorter. Were the morerarified bits systematicallyelim- inatedby a nonShakespeareanreviser-which would mean Q2 precededQ1, as the bad quartotheory argues-or werethey not yet partof the playat the time Q1 waswritten, which would make Ql the earlierversion after all? The firstquarto is a somewhatsunnier play than the second,as Urkowitzhas noted.8In FriarLawrence's interviews with the two young lovers,for example, Q2 includesnumerous foreshadowings of the ultimatefate of the pairthat do not exist in Q1. The friarrefers to earth's"burying graue" in his speechintro- ducingthe firstconference with Romeo(p. 172 [D4v]). In theirsecond conference,just beforethe arrivalof Juliet,almost every speech in Q2 offersa hint of doom that is absentor moremuted in Q1. The initialexchange in Q1 reads: Rom:Now FatherLaurence, in thy holy grant Consiststhe good of me and Iuliet. Fr:Without more words I will doo all I may, To makeyou happieif in me it lye. (P. 135 [E4r]) The secondquarto version of the initialexchange is tenser,darker with portent: Fri. So smilethe heauensvpon this holy act, That afterhoures, with sorrowchide vs not. Ro.Amen, amen, but comewhat sorrow can, It cannotcounteruaile the exchangeof ioy (P. 177 [Flv])

8. I am indebtedto Urkowitz'spaper, presented at the 1991 ShakespeareAssociation Meeting, "'Do me the kindnesto looke vpon this' and 'Heere,read, read': An Invitationto the Pleasuresof Textual/Sexual Di(Per)versity."Since writingmy own analysisof quarto/foliodifferences in Romeoand Juliet, I have encounteredtwo studiescomplementary to my own: LindaAnderson's "'Much upon theseyears': Evidenceof Revisionin Q2 RomeoandJuliet (with Referenceto Q1)," and JayL. Halio's"Handy Dandy: Q1/Q2 Romeoand Juliet, "both presentedat the ShakespeareAssociation of America'sText Seminarin April 1994. 172 -, LEAH S. MARCUS

A few lines later, the friar in Q2 offers a speech of caution that does not exist in Q1: Fri. These violent delights haue violent endes, And in their triumph die like fier and powder: Which as they kisse consume. The sweetest honey Is loathsome in his owne deliciousnesse, And in the taste confoundes the appetite. Thereforeloue moderately,long loue doth so, Too swift arriues,as tardieas too slowe. (P. 177 [F2r])

Here and throughout the rest of the scene, as elsewherein Q2, there is a sense of overhastinessand overshadowingdoom about the lovers'passion that is much less evident in Q1. To similareffect, the chorus in Q2 is more frequentlypresent and more pessimisticabout the lovers'chances for happiness.In Q1, Romeo and Juliet die as a result of severalunfortunate accidents of miscommunication,but in Q2 there is a relentless,overbearing fate that lowers upon their passion-in part, perhaps, becauseof its illicit and unauthorizednature as emphasizedin that version. Andrew Gurr has reminded us of the pervasivenessof marriagewithout parentalconsent as a subject for late Elizabethanand earlyJacobean drama, and he has furthersuggested that Shakespeare'scompany may have been particularly associatedwith a new currentof social opinion that favoredthe love match rather than arrangedmarriage.9 But the two versionsof RomeoandJuliet themselvesdif- fer over the degree to which marriagewithout parental consent is viewed as unnaturaland destructive,with Ql-like quarto MerryWives-adopting a pattern that looks more sentimental (perhapsmore "middleclass") toward the lovers, and Q2-like folio Merry Wives-articulating an attitude that is more dynastic and aristocraticin its condemnation of marriageoutside the control of family and friends. In addition, the second quarto of RomeoandJuliet paints a much clearerpic- ture of the social consequencesof the lovers'rash act than does the first. Indeed, in Ql it is far from clear that the death of the young lovers has brought peace to Verona. In Q2 the chorus states at the beginning of the play that Romeo and Juliet "withtheir death burie their Parentsstrife" and that "nought"but the deaths of the children could remove the "Parentsrage, "so that the sacrificeof the chil-

9. AndrewGurr, "Intertextuality at Windsor,"Shakespeare Quarterly 38 (1987): 189-200; see also RoslynL. Knutson's"Rejoinder" and Gurr'sreply, Shakespare Quarterly 39 (1988): 391-98. QUARTOS, FOLIOS, AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCE c" 173

dren becomes essential for the restorationof social order (p. 157 [A2r]). The prince in Q2 expressesa similarsentiment at the end of the play.All of these lines about the largersocial consequencesof the love match are conspicuouslyabsent from the correspondingpassages in Q1. Indeed, in that version, the balance of moral obloquy falls more clearlyon the feuding parents.But for their enmity, the two lovers could have marriedpublicly, joyously, and without dire consequence. What has happened between the two versions of the play?Has Shakespeare -who may himself have marriedagainst his parents'wishes-changed his mind on the subject?Is a differentaudience being addressed?Is the play being altered to accord with changing social norms on the subject of arrangedmarriage? Did late Elizabethanand earlyStuart culture in fact witness a clearenough patternof change that we can use it to establishwhich RomeoandJuliet came earlier? Hamletrepresents a yet more complicatedtextual situation, since it exists not in two distinct earlyversions but in three.The first quarto, The TragicallHistorie of Hamlet Prince ofDenmarke (1603), is the one that has been condemned for reasonsthat will by now appearfamiliar to us. It is shorterthan the others, often less elevated in its language, and much more direct in its action. The second quarto, the "good"one, is the text most often used as the basis for modern editions. Dated 1604 in some copies and 1605 in others, it bears the same title as the bad quarto, but while the 1603 quarto repeatsthe title page characterization of the play as "TragicallHistorie" in its head title (the inside title at the top of the text proper), the 1604 quarto head title elevatesthe play to a "Tragedie."In addition, the second quarto advertiseson its title page that the play is "newly imprinted and enlargedto almost as much againe as it was, accordingto the true and perfect Coppie." Indeed, the second quarto is nearlytwice the length of the first, and the claim on the title page links the authority of this version to its length. But the folio version (1623) is yet a third contender for textual authority, more closely resemblingthe bad quartoin some mattersthan it does the good quarto, agreeing with the good quarto in a number of particulars-but also including languageand speeches that exist in neither quarto version. Yet again,we need to examine each version of Hamletseparately-on its own terms-instead of rushing to conflate the three together, as modern editions of the play invariablydo. Such an examinationis obviously much too broad a task for the presentbrief survey.What I will considerhere is a very small piece of the whole picture-the different handling of Hamlet's advice to the playersin the three versions of the play.Again, as in the case of The Contentionand Henrythe Sixt part 2, we can perceivea patternof graduallyincreased elevation and distance 174 Xx LEAH S. MARCUS

betweenthe protagonistHamlet and "low"elements of the play,from the first quarto to the second and to the folio version. In the 1603 quarto,Hamlet offers a briefspeech of adviceto the players: Therebe fellowesthat I haueseene play, And heardothers commend them, and thathighly too, That hauingneither the gateof Christian,Pagan, Nor Turke,haue so struttedand bellowed, That you woulda thought,some of Naturesjourneymen Had mademen, and not madethem well, They imitatedhumanitie, so abhominable: Takeheede, auoyde it. The playerresponds, "I warrant you my Lord,"and Hamlet continues with a spe- cific descriptionof the behaviorof the clowns.As is frequentlythe casewith bad quartos(and sometimes with good quartosas well), thesespeeches are prose erro- neouslyprinted out as poetry: And doe you heare?let not yourClowne speake More then is set downe, there be of them I can tell you Thatwill laughthemselues, to set on some Quantitieof barrenspectators to laughwith them, Albeitthere is some necessarypoint in the Play Then to be observed;0 t'is vile, and shewes A pitifullambition in the foole thatvseth it. And then you hauesome agen,that keepes one sute Of ieasts, as a man is knowne by one sute of Apparell,and Gentlemen quotes his ieasts downe In theirtables, before they come to the play,as thus: Cannot you stay till I eate my porrige?and, you owe me A quarterswages; and, my coate wants a cullison: And, your beereis sowre:and, blabberingwith his lips, And thuskeeping in his cinkapaseof ieasts, When, God knows,the warmeClowne cannot make a iest Vnlesseby chance,as the blindeman catchetha hare: Maisterstell him of it. (Pp. 597-98 [F2]) In this version,Hamlet lingers over the poorlyendowed clown's resort to stock lines,said to drawa laughwhatever the theatricalcontext because they have been anticipatedby membersof the audience-who haveeven gone so faras to write QUARTOS, FOLIOS, AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCE P 175

themdown. Delivery of thisspeech would require Hamlet to mimicthe standard jokesand perhapsstimulate an audienceresponse quite similar to that aimedat by the clowns.The speechaffords a concreteglimpse of actor-audiencereaction in the populartheater, but this perspectiveis absentin the secondquarto version of the repartee,where Hamlet offers instead a moresophisticated rationale for playing-his famousspeech about suiting the actionto the word,the word to the action;about not oversteppingthe modestyof naturebut holdingthe mirror up to it, "toshew vertue her feature;scorne her owne Image,and the veryage and bodyof the time his formeand pressure."He continues, Now this ouer-done,or come tardieoff, though it makesthe vnskilfulllaugh, cannot but makethe iudiciousgreeue the cen- sureof which one, must in your allowanceore-weigh a whole Theaterof others.O therebe Playersthat I haueseene play, and heardothers praysd, and that highly, not to speakeit prophanely, that neither hauing th'accentof Christians,nor the gate of Christian,Pagan, nor man, haueso strutted& bellowed,that I hauethought some of NaturesIornimen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanitie so abhominably. (P.636 [G3v-G4r]) We note thatin thisversion, Hamlet has divided the audiencebetween the "low" and the judicious-one of the latteris to be preferredover a wholehouse of the former.The playeranswers with a little moreamplitude than in the firstquarto version,"I hope we hauereform'd that indifferently with vs."Hamlet continues, O reformeit altogether,and let those that play your clownes speakeno morethen is set downefor them,for therebe of them that wil themselueslaugh, to set on some quantitieof barraine spectatorsto laughto, thoughin the meanetime, some neces- saryquestion of the play be then to be considered,that's vil- lanous,and shewesa most pittifullambition in the foole that vsesit: goe makeyou readie.(P. 636 [G4r]) The firstquarto's vignette immersing us temporarilyin the slapstickethos of the popularstage is absenthere, as the elevatedtalk about holding the mirrorup to natureis absentfrom quartoone. The imageHamlet projects of the theateris noticeablymore refinedin the good than in the bad quarto.Furthermore, he insistson the the text'sauthority in the face of improvisingclowns who were wont to say morethan was "setdowne for them"and to distractthe audience's attentionfrom "some necessary question of the play."And he has morestrongly 176 -~ LEAH S. MARCUS

disavowedthat segmentof the audienceincapable of the virtueand judgment that the theaterteaches. The folio versionof the reparteeis close to the secondquarto version, with minor but interestingdifferences. For example, where the first quarto has "gate of Christian,Pagan, or Turke,"and the secondquarto "Christian, Pagan, nor man,"the folio has "Christian,pagan, or Norman"-suggestingthat the second quarto's"man" may be a printer'serror, the "Nor"before the hyphen left out. But farmore interesting in the folio versionare the speechesabout the contemporary statusof the players,which precedeHamlet's advice. In the firstquarto, before the playersarrive, Guilderstone (Guildenstern in the more familiarversions of the play) advisesHamlet that the playersare travelingbecause the "principall publike audience that / Came to them, are turned to priuateplayes, / And to the humoursof children."In the secondquarto, the speechis similarbut the players areslightly more elevated. Hamlet queries, "Doe they hold the sameestimasion theydid when I wasin the City;are they so followed."Rosencrantz answers simply,"No indeedeare they not," with no mentionof the children'scompanies who havedemeaningly eclipsed the adultplayers. The folioversion of thispassage (the one to whichwe areaccustomed in standardtexts of the play)is greatlyexpanded, and it forges, through topical specificity,an explicit link between Shakespeare's company performing the play of Hamlet and the players of Elsinore. We get much more information about the children'scompanies, as well as much fuller analysisof the basis for their appeal. Hamlet queries, "doe they [the adult players] grow rusty?"and Rosencrantzanswers, "Nay, their indeauour keepes in the wonted pace; But there is Sir an ayrie of Children, little Yases,that crye out on the top of question; and are most tyrannicallyclap't for't: these are now the fash- ion, and so be-ratledthe common Stages (so they call them) that many wearing Rapiers, are affraide of Goose-quils, and dare scarse come thither."To which, Hamlet:

What are they Children?Who maintains 'em? How are they escoted?Will they pursue the Quality no longer then they can sing?Will they not say afterwardsif they should grow themselues to common Players(as it is like most if their meanes are noe bet- ter) their Writersdo them wrong, to make them exclaim against their owne Succession. (TLN 1384-98)

In this version, there is an overlayof status anxiety in the portrayalof the plight of the players.Hamlet is incredulousthat the boy companies have achieved the degree of prominence that they have, and he indirectly becomes a spokesman QUARTOS, FOLIOS, AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCE r 177

for the men'scompanies-indeed, for Shakespeare'sown company.Hamlet's speeches-particularlywhen this segmentof the action is combinedwith his analysisof the purposeof playinglater on-subtly definethe so-calledcommon playersapart from the statusof menialsor childrenand conferupon them the much higherfunction of mirroringhumanity to itself in all of its vices and virtues.It is possiblethat the "littleeyases" speech at one time existedin the secondquarto as well but was strickenfrom that text as the subjectlost topical interest.But eachversion of Hamlet'sencounter with the playersin the texts as we have them elevatesthe statusof the theateras an institutionby a notch or two (or perhapsargues for its elevationin relationto threatsof one kind or another)and also elevatesthe actualcompany performing the play.Hamlet's commentsabout the playersmove them increasingly away from a popularimage of the theaterand towarda morerefined and cultivatedvision of it. Smallwon- der that our standardtexts use the folio version,with its accountof the status of the company:it is the one that accordsmost closelywith our traditional exaltedimage of Shakespeareand our notion of the eleganceand sophistication of the Shakespeareantheater. We have not solved the conundrumof which came first in terms of Shakespeare'screativity-good quartos,bad quartos,or folio text. But I have triedto suggestthat a fairlyconsistent pattern corresponding to socialdifferences emergeswhen the so-calledbad and good textsare compared in systematicfash- ion in the orderof theirpublication. The patternmay not hold for all divergent earlytexts,10 but it is evidentand uniform enough to stimulatenew investigation into the provenance,dating, and implied audiencesof variantversions of Shakespeare,and of otherdramatists as well. Letme closewith a renewedplea to historiansto considerthese issues and to help literaryscholars explore how textualdifferences may correlate with broader patternsof socialand culturalchange in the Elizabethanand Jacobean periods. To what extent can we reliablyuse broadergeneralizations about "high"and "low"culture to "place"different versions of plays in chronologicalor social terms?And how canwe refinethese generalizations by makinguse of eachother's methodsand investigations?At present,each disciplineappears content to use the otheras a stableevidentiary base for its own conclusions.But if eachdisci- pline insteadrecognizes the constructed,provisional basis of the other,literary scholarsand historianscan work togetherto particularizeand complicateour interpretationsof the earlymodern era.

10. The earlyversions of Othello,which I have not examined,may constitutea prominentexception. 178 ;v LEAH S. MARCUS

By defining what has appearedto be the most "elevated"version of each text as the Shakespearean"original," editors have evaded several interesting and diffi- cult questions. They have, for one thing, neaty sidestepped consideration of Shakespeare'sown spectacularcareer of upwardmobility as his companypros- peredand he himselfrose from "man" to "gentleman."This increasein statusmay havecaused him to distancehimself from his originsand to identifygentry or aristocraticstatus increasingly with discriminationin tasteand refinement of lan- guageas his careerprogressed. By definingShakespeare as a fixed,reliable touch- stonefor culturalvalue, modern editors-and manyothers as well-have enlisted him as a firm ally and precursorin the social ritualsby which those of us who like to thinkof ourselvesas educateddefine the degreeof our own elevationand taste. Through much of our century,to find the bad quartosvaluable would have been to revealone's incapacityfor the graceful,courtly dance of civility and order that we havetraditionally posited as synonymouswith Shakespeare. Universityof Texas