It’s Editing Lear, You’re Editing Lear

The 1608 Quarto reads: it, The 1623 Folio reads: you
Lest (it vs. you) may mar your Fortunes.

        In this line, Lear is addressing Cordelia, whose lack of flattery of him has put her claim to land in jeopardy.  He cautions her to mend her speech.  The variant here between the Quarto and Folio is not between words that have many meanings, they are simple pronouns, and yet in the context of this line they mean completely different things.  The quarto version reading “Lest it may mar your fortunes” refers directly to the speech or lack of speech that Cordelia had put forth.  The Folio version, on the other hand, refers directly to you, Cordelia.  Thus in the quarto version the speech of Cordelia is set apart from her.  The speech will mar her fortunes.  In the Folio version, she will mar her own.

         This conflict between the two words brought me back to the discussions in class about Cordelia and the importance of speech.  How Cordelia is, throughout the play, unable to speak, she cannot seem to get the words out of her (“How can I heave my heart into my mouth?”)  This difference between it and you brings forth a key question for the play: is it that she just cannot speak or is it that speech is insufficient?  In other words, is she responsible for what she says?  Do we blame her or the limits of language?  Thus two very different interpretations emerge.  One places the blame on the event that sparks the downfall of Lear and Cordelia on Cordelia herself, and the other on the fault of language.  Language in the latter case is both too easily molded towards trickery and falsehood as well as insufficient for representing true love.

        So to choose is difficult.  To choose “you” is to lose the comment on the inadequacy of language, a key theme of the play.  And to choose “it” is to deny Cordelia agency in her actions. 

        In the end, since I must choose, I would choose “it.”  Although this does deny Cordelia agency, this denial of agency is also a motif of the play.  Throughout the play there is the sense of fate and the inevitable.  Thus to deny Cordelia agency is fitting.  And in doing so, two motifs are represented.  All in one of the simplest words: it.