Assignment:
Read through the selected passage from the very first scene of King Lear included in this site (the link to this passage is provided below). And with your own edition in hand, follow all of the links provided (by clicking on the word "variant"). Compare the Quarto and Folio variants with the text in your edition. The passage we provide will look a bit unfamiliar because we have put the word "variant" in places where the First Quarto and First Folio texts differ. When you click on the word "variant," you will be able to see what word or phrase is in the First Quarto and what word or phrase is in the First Folio. To give you an example of how this works, have a look at a "variant" from the second speech of the play:
GLOUCESTER It did always seem so to us, but now in the division
of the variant it appears not which of the Dukes he values most.
Click on "variant" throughout the selected passage to see what words (or phrases) surface at this point in the early editions. As you do this, consider which variants are significant and which are relatively insignificant or minor. Consider the decision that the editor of your own edition made and think about the logic that may have been behind it. Challenge that logic. Would you have made a similar choice? How would the alternative choice work to shade or sculpt the meaning of the particular line, the speech, the character speaking, the scene, act or indeed, the entire play?
Also, as you read through the text, you will notice a series of words highlighted in green. The green signifies lines that are in the First Folio that are not in the First Quarto (the Folio, again, is dated 1623 and the Quarto 1608 so these additions to the text surface, of course, in the Folio). Once you have read through the passage and considered the differences between the texts, please select ONE of the following to write a 1-2 page (double spaced) paper on:
1) Select one of the highlighted "variants" in Lear and make an editorial decision about which word (or phrase) you think should be included in your contemporary edition of the play. How would you decide which word to use, or how would you reconcile the difference between the two words? Use the skills you developed in your Hamlet assignment by using the Oxford English Dictionary to look up the significance of these words in an early modern context (this resource will clearly be more helpful for some words than for others). The link to the OED is provided at the bottom of this page. To point out a striking variant that surfaces in the second speech of the play, let's have a closer look at the following:
GLOUCESTER It did always seem so to us, but now in the division
of the variant it appears not which of the Dukes he values most.
The difference here between "kingdoms" (Q1) and "kingdom" (F) may strike you as minor. But consider, in terms of the thematics of division that dominates the play (and especially the first act of the play), how the word and concept of multiple "kingdoms" might differ from the word and concept of a single "kingdom." What word would you use? Would it make a difference? What might it mean--to close readers of Shakespeare's Lear-- if the kingdom that Lear takes pains to divide is, in some sense, already divided? Much has been written on this textual variation, for more on it, please click here.
2) Select one of the portions of text that surface in the First Folio but not in the Quarto (again, the text highlighted in green). Write a short (again, 1-2 page) essay about the significance of the passage in terms of your reading of the act, the scene, and indeed, the play as a whole. What, as an editor, would you choose to do if you were to create a new edition out of these two older editions? Would you import all of the lines from the Folio? What would they add to the play? What would be missing from the play if these lines were not included? Or in other terms, what--as a director of this play--would you include and what would you exclude?
For the selected text of Lear, click here (I.i. roughly lines 35-83).
For the Oxford English Dictionary, click here.
A variation of this assignment was created by Carla Mazzio for Marjorie Garber's "Shakespeare: the Late Plays" at Harvard University.