Publication and Variations of the Quarto and Folio Versions of Shakespeare's
Love's Labour's Lost
Heather L. Rosmus '02
When reading a play by Shakespeare, one should realize that his plays were not intended to be read; they were intended to be performed. Therefore, it was a rare occasion to see a play published in book form. The first forms of Shakespeare's printed plays were in the forms of quartos and folios. (Mabillard, par. 1) Due to the nature of the publication of these books, it is not surprising that there are significant differences and inconsistencies in the various versions of his plays. Love's Labour's Lost, along with the rest of Shakespeare's plays, is known to contain many confusing unconformities. These variations have fueled many questions: What were Shakespeare's intentions? Where the inconstancies the faults of Shakespeare himself? On the other hand, did the printers and the proofreaders cause the variations in dialogue and spelling? (Mabillard, pars. 1-2)
The process by which plays were first published is interesting. Often plays were published with neither the playwright's consent nor the consent of the theatrical Stage Company that owned the play. In order to publish a play, the print company needed to obtain a copy of the script. This was often accomplished by having people view the play and write the scripts from the memory of these viewers or by stealing and publishing the prompt-book. The prompt-book seems to have been something rare; not every play had one. This book was "the official copy" and it was usually the only copy. It contained the script, the actors' names, stage directions and so forth. (Mabillard, par. 1) The quartos were the first forms of Shakespeare's plays to be published. Love's Labour's Lost first appeared in quarto form in 1598. (Wells, 137) The quartos were composed of pages called leaves. Each page had eight smaller pages printed on it and these large pages were folded into quarters. (Mabillard, par. 3) Claims about the accuracy of the first quarto are extremely varied. Scholars agree that the first folio was taken from the first quarto text, which is said to have been taken directly from Shakespeare's foul papers. (Werstine, 35) The first quarto was printed in William White's print shop and the accuracy of his proofreader is the key to our queries. From studying the available quartos it is determined that the proofreader was through at times and let mistakes slip more often at other times. Therefore one must consider all copies and hope to put together the pieces that Shakespeare truly intended. (Werstine, 35)
The first folio text was published in 1623. The folios were folded over once making two leaves. The editors of the first folio text, Heminge and Condell, included a preface in the folio explaining that the readers of the quartos of Love's Labour's Lost had been deceived. They were sure that the text of the first quarto had been obtained by dishonest means. It was also true, and experts agree, that the dialogue and spelling errors in the quarto were horrendous. At the time scholars readily agreed with the editors. However, today the validity of the quartos has been investigated due to contradicting papers written on the topic and as of now only ten of the quartos are considered corrupt. (Mabillard, par. 2)
One of the major confusions in the text of Love's Labour's Lost occurs in Act Two, Scene One of the first quarto. In this scene, it appears that Berowne is wooing Katherine and that Dumaine is wooing Rosalind. Throughout the rest of the play, it becomes quite clear that Berowne is actually interested in Rosalind and Dumaine is wooing Katherine. Some have speculated the possibility that Shakespeare intended the women to be wearing masks at this point. However, this masquerading occurs again in Act Five, Scene Two and it is unlikely that Shakespeare intended to repeat the same idea twice. Therefore, the exchange of the names in this scene has been chalked up as Shakespeare's inability to choose names for the women. (Wells, 137-138) Another confusion among reader's of the play involves the stage directions and such throughout the play that call for Don Adriano de Armando to be a braggart. However, only once in the play, does his actions conform to this egotistical attitude. (Smidt, 206)
The folios contained many of the same errors that the quartos contained but it also contained significant differences. For example, the line "You that way; we this way" is included by Armando in the last lines of the play in the folio texts. Many of the seemingly, obvious misspellings and dialogue variations were also changed. (Wells, 138) When the compositor B, C and D versions of the quartos were compared, several substitutions, omissions and trivial errors in wording and spelling were found. Compositor C was found to be the worst containing sixty-four total errors. (Jackson, 63) Trivial errors were usually the result of a letter left out of a word, creating a nonsensical word or a word that did not fit into that context. Substitutions were often two words that had been made into contractions, alterations of words, and misspelled words. (Jackson, 63) For example, in one compositor version, the word Madame was also spelled Madam and Maddame. Armando has also been spelled Armantho and Armado; eye has been spelled eie. (Price, 421)
One of the well known analysis' of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost was by J. Dover Wilson. Wilson claims that, of the two hundred and fifty-four variations in the dialogue of Love's Labour's Lost, it is extremely unlikely that Shakespeare had anything to do with these errors. He feels that changes were made to make the scenes "actable" on stage. Although, he considers that Wilson's ideas do make sense in many ways, Stanley Wells disagrees that Shakespeare had nothing to do with the errors. He speculates that "foul papers" must have existed in order to produce a script for the performance and also the prompt-book. (Wells, 138-139) Wells writes,
The term "foul papers" itself implies recognition that another manuscript, in a more finished state, must have existed. The possibilities are these: the author himself made a fair copy, tidying the play up as he went along, and this was used as a prompt-book; the author himself made a fair copy which was transcribed by someone else and used as a prompt-book; and (least likely) someone else made sense, somehow, of the foul papers, transcribing and editing them, perhaps with the author's assistance, to form a prompt-book. (Wells, 140)
Wells later concludes that the manuscript that existed closely resembled the play as it was preformed rather than the foul papers, which the quarto was taken from. He states that the quarto from which the folio was based on must have been compared to this manuscript of the performed play. (Wells, 146)
The debates over Love's Labour's Lost are sure to continue for eternity. Although we have been able to make viable speculations throughout the printed history of the play, without the original manuscript we can never be sure. We will never know for certain if inconsistencies are due to Shakespeare's apparent forgetfulness for details, which were details changed for performance purposes, and which were simply the printing mistakes of the print shop proofreaders. (Wells, 139) However, Shakespeare's meaning in writing the play shines through, no matter how near or far from his original words a particular version is. (Werstine, 35)
Works Cited
Jackson, MacD. P. "Compositors B, C, and D and the First Folio Text of
Love's Labour's Lost." Review of English Studies. 33 (1982): 137-147
Price, George R. "The Printing of Love's Labour's Lost (1598)." The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 72 (1978): 405-435
Smidt, Kristian. "Shakespeare in Two Minds: Unconformities in Love's Labour's Lost." English Studies 65 (1984): 205-219
Wells, Stanley. "The Copy for the First Folio Text of Love's Labour's Lost." Review of English Studies 33 (1982): 137-147
Werstine, Paul. "Variants in the First Quarto of Love's Labour's Lost." Shakespeare Studies 12 (1979): 35-47
[ Home
] [ Literary Influences ] [ Cultural/Historical
Influences ] [ Textual/Performance History
]
[ Critical History ] [ Web
Resources ] [ Site Information ]