As I continue my readings in bibliography, I've moved on to "Textual Instability and Editorial Idealism" by G. Thomas Tanselle, which sounds like it should be right up my alley given the conundrums I'm dealing with in the preparation of a final text. Merry Devil has textual instability aplenty, and right now if there's one thing I'm clearly lacking, it's enough experience as an editor to have a guiding ideology of how to best proceed with this project. Lets see what I can learn here....
Tanselle begins with the observations that the study of texts as social objects that are newly edited each time they are read has become popular in the last half century, but that this does not necessarily invalidate the Greg-Bowers tradition of establishing authorial intent. The vogue for "anti-foundationalist" literary theory leads to an anti-foundationalist textual theory, but neither can be more correct than the other (1-3).
Bowers preferred dealing with the problems presented by specific situations to discussions of theory (3).
The question of "multiple authorship" can only be answered based on how one define multiple authors. In Multiple Authorship and the Myth of Solitary Genius, Jack Stillinger defines multiple authorship so broadly that a single author must be someone who never incorporates anything outside of themselves into their work, and never revises it at a later time. Otherwise, any contribution made to a text is made by another "author." Tanselle finds this proposition ridiculous (3 - 5).
Stillinger's proposition is further undercut when he makes the distinction between changes that an editor makes to a text that are then authorized by the original writer, and changes that an editor makes to a text that are not; in this case calling them corruptions. These corruptions to the original authors text are, however, still authorized by the editor who makes them, and thus are "legitimate" for that particular new work (6). So, in a nutshell, if I make a change to a text by Shakespeare, I've corrupted Shakespeare's text at the same time that I've authorized by own, but my text has at least two authors (myself and Shakespeare). If an actor asks to change a word in the text and I let them, I am authorizing that change, and thus they become another author of text B, but if I don't and they do it anyway, they create a text C with three authors anyway. You can see how quickly this lies to madness, for if we follow this logic, by choosing to not make the change my actor suggests, they author a new edition because I have had to consider an alternative and choose not to use it, so they force me to re-evaluate my original choice, so in reality we create text C (actor changes word without me authorizing the change) and C prime (me not making the change after the actor has suggested it. This sounds like a Caucus Race.
Questioning the importance of authorial intention in textual studies is a worthwhile endeavor, but only if it can account for how the socialized, anti-foundationalist understanding of a text can fit together with the foundationalist approach. "Textual idealism" is not a synonym for "textual perfection," and constructing a text as it was conceived of by the author at a certain point in time does not undermine the notion of further editions of that text as products of social and historical change, nor does it invalidate those other texts (12).
It is further important to distinguish that bibliographers who attempt to discern authorial intention are not attempting to discover an original idea behind the work, but are attempting to reconstruct a material work that is not extant in physical form (12).
An author may have simply made a mistake in writing down their ideas, or they may have been limited by available materials or technology, but these limitations or accidents do not invalidate the text they intended to write. An intentionalist editor is therefore not trying to recover the idea of the text, they are simply intending to recover the text that was conceived of, but not necessarily written down properly by the author (12). Honestly, I'm a little shaky on this one. When it comes to typos &c, seeing through to authorial intention, that is the idea behind the text, is almost necessary. When an author calls a character by the wrong name (for example, omitting "Sir" in a speech prefix) and names another character that is clearly not present in the scene, I don't think it wrong to say that we can see the idea behind the text. Reconstructing the material textual object would mean reconstructing the error, but in this case it is more useful to reconstruct the idea behind the text and simply note the error. There's no need to muck this up with poetic notions of trying to see through to the genius or the muse behind the idea, for in this case we are seeing an idea clearly manifested in symbolic form that, for whatever reason, simply did not translate well into a material object. Maybe this is just splitting hair between the meaning of "idea" and "text as conceived."
It is important to remember that an intended text is in itself the product of a historical (and a social) process. Since no author writes in a vacuum, the texts they produce, whether intended or unintended, are distillations of a particular historical/cultural moment, and the texts intended by authors at the moment of conception should have their place in the history of the text (13-14). Thus, understanding of an author's intention means having to understand the author's particular historical/social/cultural context.
Editors attempting to create a text that reflects an author's intention by making emendations do so by attempting to fix the text as intended at a specific time by the author. This can mean incorporating later emendations into an earlier text on the premise that those emendations more accurately reflect the intended earlier text, or vice versa. Still, the editor is also fixing the edited text in a certain moment in time, and as with any historical research, will be required to fill in the gaps with their own critical judgment (17).
In the anthology Editing in Australia, Peter Shillingsburg's "The Autonomous Author, the Sociology of Texts and Polemics of Textual Criticism" advocates an approach to reading, and thus editing, based on context. A text needs to be read in light of all possible contextual factors. This position is not a new one, but Shillingsburg sets it forth very well, and this essay is therefore worth following up with (23).
James McLaverty suggests the two important questions when considering a text are what versions are, and which text editors should present to readers. He goes on to argue that any distinctive "utterance" of a text somehow connected to other utterances constitutes a new version. The text editors should present to readers encapsulates one or more of the author's intended utterances, and also includes the structural apparatus for connecting these utterances, and for connecting this particular utterance with other utterances (25 - 26).
Joseph Grigley builds on McLaverty's work with the observation that individual utterances cannot be repeated because each utterance is its own event. Even if the precise words of an utterance can be repeated, its context cannot. Grigley's conception of the timely nature of utterances may not offer anything new to editors, who have known for generations that they can never recapture the complete context of a work, but it may help clarify what editors have done and will continue to do going forward: capture the interpretation of a textual moment (26).
The binary between "modernist editors" who seek to create a stable and definitive text and "post-modernist editors" who highlight the instability of texts and the value of interpretation is, as most binaries tend to be, too neat to be practical (30).
Morris Eave's entry in Cultural Artifacts and the Production of Meaning: The Page, the Image, and the Body offers a view of editing that delights in the instability of texts. He argues that all editorial decisions are legitimate, and links the decisions of the editor to the same decisions the artist makes as part of "the process of history." Intentionalist editing is one more form of interpretation and creation, and should not be dismissed (32 - 33). A-men I say to that. The fact is that it's very difficult to present Renaissance or earlier, or even early 20th century or earlier plays in their entirety to a modern audience. The theatrical conventions of the time will dictate an audiences expectation and basic level of tolerance for how long they're willing to sit still. Like it or not, in the early 21st century, that means the 10 or 15 minute span of a YouTube video.
Tanselle's got my back on this last point. I'll quote him here: "Thus when Eaves says that 'whatever is may be . . . on its way to becoming right,' he recognizes that change may be necessary to produce rightness for a given audience" (33).
Ann R. Meyers, in "Shakespeare's Art and the Texts of King Lear" notes that even attempts at documentary editing still require a degree of selection and interpretation. In presenting the two versions of King Lear in their Oxford Edition, Wells and Taylor have made emendations to the quarto Lear where Qa has "crulentious," Qb "tempestuous," and F "contentious," Wells and Taylor have used the Folio reading in their quarto version of the text based on paleographic evidence that demonstrates the Folio provides the correct reading to the compositor error of the Quartos. Despite similar paleographic evidence for reading for the correctness of Folio's "Come unbutton" (as opposed to Qa's "Come on be true" or Qb's "Come on") Wells and Taylor have left the reading of "come on be true" because it makes to them "local and contextual sense" (34 - 35). Wells and Taylor are the ones that determine the sense of their inclusion or rejection of certain readings, and thus they still are creating a text that is a conflation; an edition of their own interpretation.
In "Text as Matter, Concept, and Action," Peter L. Shillingsburg offers an ambitious argument for the existence of non-material texts, in which he demonstrates how non-material texts are linked to their material counterparts. He conceives of works as entities that are manifested in material and linguistic form, but that the conceptual version of a text should not be confused with the Platonic ideal of "text" (37). This is definitely one I'll have to read. Where does one draw the line between ideas, texts as conceived but not written, and the text that appears on the page. I can only imagine some future textual scholar trying to make sense of the stew of tracked changes that Google Docs keeps of "Battleground State." Precisely how much weight should we give to the text as conceived when the author might decide that the text as conceived sucks, and needs extensive re-conception before it's fit to be put in front of people?
Texts can only be understood through observation, but every observer has the right to choose how they wish to observe a text (or anything else for that matter). Any theory of textuality must encompass every process by which a text may be observed, which includes a range of methods and tastes as diverse as the number of observers (39-40). Observing a text through an historical scope requires a different apparatus than observing that text with a final performance in mind, and observing a text as a work of art fit to be hung on a wall requires a still different apparatus. Before presenting an edition of Merry Devil, I must determine who that edition is for.
Paul Eggert, in "Document and Text: The 'Life' of the Literary Work and the Capacities of Editing," also argues that all editions of a work should be considered and studied as authentic iterations of the work and should be studied as authentic (41).
Tanselle says this of Grigely's "Textual Criticism and the Arts: The Problem of Textual Space," but I think it bears quoting, as it has general application, and should, I think serve as a framework for understanding any essay arguing for any theory of a text: "Practically everyone understands that the experience of a text, like all other experiences, is colored by one's entire previous life and that it will continue to reverberate in one's mind, affecting all experiences afterward. An essay that says something like this does not mark any advance in thinking" (45).
If modern approaches to editing emphasize the plurality of texts rather than the intentions of a single author, than it is curious that modern textual scholars have a low regard for the work of the intentionalist editors of previous generations. The texts they produced are, after all, a further contribution to the plural text that modern textual scholars celebrate (49 - 50).
New theoretical insights into the nature of editing have the danger of creating a sense of the futility of the editing process. If all versions of a text ought to be considered in their own right, it is impossible to present a modern reader with an accurate distillation. It is likewise impossible to create an edition that encompasses the needs of all possible readers of a text. Through this, it is important to remember that editing a text is a creative activity, akin to writing an essay or giving a performance (50 - 51). So it is more than helpful, it is essential to determine the ultimate goal of a text before it is produced. Is the goal for the text to be read in a classroom or to be performed on a stage. What kind of classroom? What kind of stage? Determining the ideal audience for a work will provide the context in which the work is to be created. The way you advertise your show for a Philly Fringe audience will of necessity be different from the way you advertise your show for a largely academic audience in rural Virginia.
While some more modern philosophies of editing have heaped criticism on previous generations of editors for preferring a "single text" edition of a work, the form of the codex lends itself to this style of presentation. Critical editors of the past might very well have wanted to present multiple text editions of their work, but this option was unavailable given the physical and economic limitations they faced (52-53).
Here's something worth quoting: "The acts of constructing texts and works are social events, as many textual theorists have been telling us; but we are not going as far as we can toward understanding those events if we limit ourselves to surviving objects and exclude from our deliberations the mental events that are a fundamental part of the textual process" (58).
Quoting Virginia Wolfe: "I believe that the main thing in beginning a novel is to feel, not that you can write it, but that it exists on the far side of a gulf, which words can't cross: that its to be pulled through only in a breathless anguish. . . . But a novel, as I say, to be good should seem, before one writes it, something unwriteable but only visible; so that for nine months one lives in despair, and only when
one has forgotten what one meant, does the book seem tolerable. I assure you, all my novels were first rate before they were written" (58-59).
Summary: Texts that are conceived are inherently different from texts that are written, and if we are truly to explore textual objects as cultural artifacts, this requires seeing beyond the words printed or written on them. The form of the printed book has as much as any guiding philosophy led to the development of single text editions, but single text editions will always be a requirement of publishing. Someone with the proper knowledge and training will always be necessary to distill information that a less well informed reader does not have, or does not have access to. In the complete social history of a text, a single text edition of that text is another version of the text.
Wow. This was a thick survey of the development of theories of editorial instability and editorial theory. It's left me with a lot to think about, and some other things to explore.
Showing posts with label Text. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Text. Show all posts
Sunday, August 15, 2010
What Text?
One of my standard tropes is that the audience isn't going to be watching a play with a script in hand. I mean, yeah, you'll occasionally see some student or weirdo sitting in the house with a book in hand, but even when you do, 3/5 of the time that's their vado me cum they bring along to plays in case they get bored. Sorry, you've bored them. The other 2/5 of the time, you'll see someone following along with the script.
I don't really get why people do this. I'm one of those people that likes having the subtitles available at the opera, but still finds them distracting when they're not done well. I'd rather be watching the show than reading along with it. Especially in the case of any sort of "classic" show, which is almost always going to be cut or otherwise adapted: chances are you don't have the exact same text that the production used as the copy text for its performance edition.
Almost certainly, the audience won't be sitting there with the text in hand. Lets pretend for a minute that they are. Lets pretend that everyone who walks into The Merry Devil gets a copy of the text that was the basis for the production... pause to consider what that even means. Is that the collated copy text, the edited text I gave my cast before the read through, the edited text I gave them a month or so ago, or how about the resulting text that incorporates all changes we make during rehearsals? Any of these texts are inherently incomplete because the performance has co-evolved with the text it used as its basis.
Even that text cannot convey everything the performance does. The performance is ephemeral and the result of a combination of highly variable, non-reproducible factors. For example, pretend an actor got stuck in traffic on the way to the theatre that night, and they're late and running on adrenaline from having to hurry to make sure they arrive close to call time: that might mean they're going to be a little bit ore up-tempo during that performance. Or maybe a lot. Or it could even mean precisely the opposite. No text can convey all of this.
By the time the production is ready for performance, the text does not exist.
I don't really get why people do this. I'm one of those people that likes having the subtitles available at the opera, but still finds them distracting when they're not done well. I'd rather be watching the show than reading along with it. Especially in the case of any sort of "classic" show, which is almost always going to be cut or otherwise adapted: chances are you don't have the exact same text that the production used as the copy text for its performance edition.
Almost certainly, the audience won't be sitting there with the text in hand. Lets pretend for a minute that they are. Lets pretend that everyone who walks into The Merry Devil gets a copy of the text that was the basis for the production... pause to consider what that even means. Is that the collated copy text, the edited text I gave my cast before the read through, the edited text I gave them a month or so ago, or how about the resulting text that incorporates all changes we make during rehearsals? Any of these texts are inherently incomplete because the performance has co-evolved with the text it used as its basis.
Even that text cannot convey everything the performance does. The performance is ephemeral and the result of a combination of highly variable, non-reproducible factors. For example, pretend an actor got stuck in traffic on the way to the theatre that night, and they're late and running on adrenaline from having to hurry to make sure they arrive close to call time: that might mean they're going to be a little bit ore up-tempo during that performance. Or maybe a lot. Or it could even mean precisely the opposite. No text can convey all of this.
By the time the production is ready for performance, the text does not exist.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Making Shakespeare Notes: Chapter Six
The typeface of early modern plays tended to differ when prologues, epilogues, songs, and letters were printed. Prologues, Epilogues, songs, and letters are also often distinguished by titles that set them off from the rest of the text, despite these being generally textually apparent (113-114).
It is not uncommon for early modern texts to simply describe where a song should go, such as in Julius Caesar [4.3], where Lucius plays a song for Brutus (115). This also occurs in Pericles [Q H3b 5.1] and 1 Henry IV [3.1] (116).
When printed in early modern texts, it is not uncommon to find songs printed as appendixes to the plays. This is probably because songs would have been kept separate from the play book, and thus would have been printed separately, or perhaps not at all. It is possible they were kept separate for use by the actors; actors could take the song (accompanied by its music) with them on stage to sing (117).
Prologues, like songs, were also fluid. All's Lost by Lust, and Wonder of a Kingdom, two plays separated by three years and two different authors, have the same prologue. Where several of Shakespeare's plays that do not have prologues speak of prologues as being common components of a play text, Richard III has a prologue written by Heywood for a Queen Anne's Men's boy player (118-119).
"Prologues and epilogues were not part of a unified text, sharing the same rights and lasting qualities" (120).
Prologues and epilogues may have been written for specific, one off court performances, which would have a different flavor than their counterparts for public performance. Surviving prologues for public performances tend to share common themes of at once asking the indulgence of the audience and inviting them to judge it, and
epilogues tend to directly ask their audiences for applause (120-121). These prologues and epilogues were essential features of an opening night performance, but if the play 'passed' its opening night test, would be subsequently dropped from future productions (122).
The character of the prologue appears to have been dressed in a black robe and hold a garland, the symbols of the scholar and the poet. An actor in the company thus plays the role of the author, and by extension transfers the authority of the play to the company (122).
"A play in performance was by no means textually fixed" (122).
SUMMARY:
Textual instability was a key feature of any part of an early modern play text. Songs, prologues, epilogues, and letters would generally not be included with the printed text because they were different pieces of paper from the play book. Likewise, plays were written in parts, and playwrights could take advantage of the custom of parts and cues to create scripted gibberish that would have been apparent in performance, although not necessarily in the company book. The texts of the plays, designed to be performed, were inherently mutable, and thus the texts that we know should not be considered as fixed entities of singular poetic genius.
It is not uncommon for early modern texts to simply describe where a song should go, such as in Julius Caesar [4.3], where Lucius plays a song for Brutus (115). This also occurs in Pericles [Q H3b 5.1] and 1 Henry IV [3.1] (116).
When printed in early modern texts, it is not uncommon to find songs printed as appendixes to the plays. This is probably because songs would have been kept separate from the play book, and thus would have been printed separately, or perhaps not at all. It is possible they were kept separate for use by the actors; actors could take the song (accompanied by its music) with them on stage to sing (117).
Prologues, like songs, were also fluid. All's Lost by Lust, and Wonder of a Kingdom, two plays separated by three years and two different authors, have the same prologue. Where several of Shakespeare's plays that do not have prologues speak of prologues as being common components of a play text, Richard III has a prologue written by Heywood for a Queen Anne's Men's boy player (118-119).
"Prologues and epilogues were not part of a unified text, sharing the same rights and lasting qualities" (120).
Prologues and epilogues may have been written for specific, one off court performances, which would have a different flavor than their counterparts for public performance. Surviving prologues for public performances tend to share common themes of at once asking the indulgence of the audience and inviting them to judge it, and
epilogues tend to directly ask their audiences for applause (120-121). These prologues and epilogues were essential features of an opening night performance, but if the play 'passed' its opening night test, would be subsequently dropped from future productions (122).
The character of the prologue appears to have been dressed in a black robe and hold a garland, the symbols of the scholar and the poet. An actor in the company thus plays the role of the author, and by extension transfers the authority of the play to the company (122).
"A play in performance was by no means textually fixed" (122).
SUMMARY:
Textual instability was a key feature of any part of an early modern play text. Songs, prologues, epilogues, and letters would generally not be included with the printed text because they were different pieces of paper from the play book. Likewise, plays were written in parts, and playwrights could take advantage of the custom of parts and cues to create scripted gibberish that would have been apparent in performance, although not necessarily in the company book. The texts of the plays, designed to be performed, were inherently mutable, and thus the texts that we know should not be considered as fixed entities of singular poetic genius.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Making Shakespeare Notes: Chapter Three
Apparently, the Prologue was the first Chapter, and the first chapter is chapter two, and so on, so technically last time I was writing about chapter two, and this time I'm making notes on chapter three. I'll just put that in my confused locker and move along.
Heminges and Condell, when they praised Shakespeare for never revising his work, were giving him customary praise for the time. Thomas Randolph, a less well known playwright, was similarly praised by his peers (34).
"The one piece of continuous handwriting that is thought to be Shakespeare's is actually full of crossed words, rewriting and overwriting" (35).
Hand D of The Book of Thomas Moore, whether it is Shakespeare's or not, provides valuable insight into the nature of collaboration. His text, which includes only a crowd scene and a soliloquy, is inconsistent with the rest of the play, and demonstrates a lack of knowledge of the play as a whole. Very little knowledge of a play was required for collaboration (36).
From the Thomas Moore manuscript, we see Shakespeare re-using the "Friends, Romans, Countryman" rhetorical device from Julius Caesar in the form of "friends, masters, countrymen." This is not an isolated example, as Hamlet's "words, words, words" re-appears as Troilus' "words, words, mere words..." Shakespeare clearly re-used linguistic structures that he liked (38).
Berowne's justification for being forsworn is an example of Shakespeare deciding to rework a passage while he was writing it. The complete passage as it has come down to us is highly repetitive, which is indicative that the typesetter did not note a marginal indication to strike one set of the lines, and although it is impossible to tell which ones do not belong, it is almost certain that one of them should not be present in the text (39).
Romeo's description of "the grey eyed morn" in Romeo and Juliet is later repeated by Friar Laurence with subtle changes to the description. There changes make it unlikely that the repeated passage is the result of print-house error, and further implies that the characters are here acting as vehicles for verse passages; the speaker obviously didn't matter to the playwright so much as that the lines were spoken (39-40).
Shakespeare's tendency to recycle phrases and rhetorical devices across his plays suggests an author who thinks in individual passages of text without regard for the cohesion of the whole (42).
"A culture that works with commonplace books has a habit of thinking in snippets, in pieces of removable text" (42). Consider the works of Shakespeare not as long, cohesive works of brilliants, but as snippets of language, recycled rhetorical devices, and borrowed plot points. Consider that Shakespeare was not the first author, he was the first remixer.
Ben Jonson marked pieces of his plays in his Collected Works off in quotation marks, presumably to highlight his best writing and concepts. He breaks his plays back down into the component passages from which they are fashioned (45).
Stern defines bad quartos: bottom of page 46.
Heminge's and Condell chose to avoid both the demeaning term "plays" for the Folio, but likewise wanted to avoid the seemingly haughty term "works" (for which choice Ben Jonson was derided in 1616). Thus the choice to publish the Folio as "Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, histories and tragedies," while escaping both the demeaning and pretentious terms necessitated his plays be divided into these genres (48).
An early text of Henry V predicts success for Essex's enterprise in Ireland, but later texts were amended after Essex failed (or after it became clear that he would fail). Even if Essex had succeeded, the passage would have had to have been amended to reflect the past-tense of his victory. Shakespeare must have written the passage knowing he was going to change it, but it was more important that the play reflect the timeliness of the events in his world (51).
Revisions to Julius Caesar, Henry V, Richard II, and 1 Henry IV are only apparent to us because of external factors that alert us to them. It is unknown how many other revisions were made to Shakespeare's plays, with or without his knowledge or consent (52).
Shakespeare demonstrably revised his plays, even if he did so unwillingly, but he also ha a tendency to be willing to strike the lines for which he is now best remembered. Further, it seems clear that his fellow company members were not opposed to revising his plays after his death, as in the case of Macbeth. Revision was a regular feature of early modern playwriting, and Shakespeare was no exception (61).
Summary:
Shakespeare's texts were fluid. Since he wrote about his times and incorporated contemporary events into his writing, he wrote his plays anticipating that he would need to revise them. Further, the law and royal favor forced him to revise his plays from time to time so they could be performed. Since a revised and expanded text was a selling point for playbooks, it is likewise improbable that Shakespeare felt that he needed to conceal his revisions form the practice of his playwriting. Heminges and Condell, in praising Shakespeare for never having needed to revise his works, were applying a formula of praise that was widely known at the time, and we ought not to read anything more into it than that. Revision was the rule, and not the exception, and even in cases where there is only one text (good, bad, or ugly), there are often hints that a previous version of the text existed.
Heminges and Condell, when they praised Shakespeare for never revising his work, were giving him customary praise for the time. Thomas Randolph, a less well known playwright, was similarly praised by his peers (34).
"The one piece of continuous handwriting that is thought to be Shakespeare's is actually full of crossed words, rewriting and overwriting" (35).
Hand D of The Book of Thomas Moore, whether it is Shakespeare's or not, provides valuable insight into the nature of collaboration. His text, which includes only a crowd scene and a soliloquy, is inconsistent with the rest of the play, and demonstrates a lack of knowledge of the play as a whole. Very little knowledge of a play was required for collaboration (36).
From the Thomas Moore manuscript, we see Shakespeare re-using the "Friends, Romans, Countryman" rhetorical device from Julius Caesar in the form of "friends, masters, countrymen." This is not an isolated example, as Hamlet's "words, words, words" re-appears as Troilus' "words, words, mere words..." Shakespeare clearly re-used linguistic structures that he liked (38).
Berowne's justification for being forsworn is an example of Shakespeare deciding to rework a passage while he was writing it. The complete passage as it has come down to us is highly repetitive, which is indicative that the typesetter did not note a marginal indication to strike one set of the lines, and although it is impossible to tell which ones do not belong, it is almost certain that one of them should not be present in the text (39).
Romeo's description of "the grey eyed morn" in Romeo and Juliet is later repeated by Friar Laurence with subtle changes to the description. There changes make it unlikely that the repeated passage is the result of print-house error, and further implies that the characters are here acting as vehicles for verse passages; the speaker obviously didn't matter to the playwright so much as that the lines were spoken (39-40).
Shakespeare's tendency to recycle phrases and rhetorical devices across his plays suggests an author who thinks in individual passages of text without regard for the cohesion of the whole (42).
"A culture that works with commonplace books has a habit of thinking in snippets, in pieces of removable text" (42). Consider the works of Shakespeare not as long, cohesive works of brilliants, but as snippets of language, recycled rhetorical devices, and borrowed plot points. Consider that Shakespeare was not the first author, he was the first remixer.
Ben Jonson marked pieces of his plays in his Collected Works off in quotation marks, presumably to highlight his best writing and concepts. He breaks his plays back down into the component passages from which they are fashioned (45).
Stern defines bad quartos: bottom of page 46.
Heminge's and Condell chose to avoid both the demeaning term "plays" for the Folio, but likewise wanted to avoid the seemingly haughty term "works" (for which choice Ben Jonson was derided in 1616). Thus the choice to publish the Folio as "Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, histories and tragedies," while escaping both the demeaning and pretentious terms necessitated his plays be divided into these genres (48).
An early text of Henry V predicts success for Essex's enterprise in Ireland, but later texts were amended after Essex failed (or after it became clear that he would fail). Even if Essex had succeeded, the passage would have had to have been amended to reflect the past-tense of his victory. Shakespeare must have written the passage knowing he was going to change it, but it was more important that the play reflect the timeliness of the events in his world (51).
Revisions to Julius Caesar, Henry V, Richard II, and 1 Henry IV are only apparent to us because of external factors that alert us to them. It is unknown how many other revisions were made to Shakespeare's plays, with or without his knowledge or consent (52).
Shakespeare demonstrably revised his plays, even if he did so unwillingly, but he also ha a tendency to be willing to strike the lines for which he is now best remembered. Further, it seems clear that his fellow company members were not opposed to revising his plays after his death, as in the case of Macbeth. Revision was a regular feature of early modern playwriting, and Shakespeare was no exception (61).
Summary:
Shakespeare's texts were fluid. Since he wrote about his times and incorporated contemporary events into his writing, he wrote his plays anticipating that he would need to revise them. Further, the law and royal favor forced him to revise his plays from time to time so they could be performed. Since a revised and expanded text was a selling point for playbooks, it is likewise improbable that Shakespeare felt that he needed to conceal his revisions form the practice of his playwriting. Heminges and Condell, in praising Shakespeare for never having needed to revise his works, were applying a formula of praise that was widely known at the time, and we ought not to read anything more into it than that. Revision was the rule, and not the exception, and even in cases where there is only one text (good, bad, or ugly), there are often hints that a previous version of the text existed.
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