Shakespearean Suspect Texts

Abstract

There are forty-one problematic play texts, variously classified as 'bad quartos' or 'memorial reconstructions', from Shakespeare's time. Textual criticism of these quartos has been fraught with assumption and contradiction. Laurie Maguire examines all the texts in detail. She deconstructs the theories of W. W. Greg and his followers, scrutinizing the methods by which critics diagnose texts as 'bad', and examines the historical evidence for the concept of memorial reconstruction (compilation from the recollection of actors or spectators). The valuable contextual material includes fresh analysis of the New Bibliographers, the rise of English studies, Renaissance oral culture and textual problems in non-suspect texts. The assembly of textual information about all the suspect texts in tabular form makes the book an essential reference work. The result is a study which covers a vast textual subject without sacrificing detail.

Shakespeare at Work: Four Kings and Two Shrews

“…Though Honigmann claims that Troublesome Reign is a reported text and gives an unconvincing early date for King John, Troublesome Reign has none of the standard characteristics of a reported text, as listed by Laurie Maguire, and Forker has presented strong arguments supporting Peele's authorship of Troublesome Reign and a date at least five years earlier than King John. 41 King Leir, attributed to Kyd by Vickers, is no later than 1594, probably earlier, and King Lear more than a decade later. In contrast, the authorship of A Shrew is unknown, and evidence for the date of The Shrew is inconsistent.…”

Rival monarchs: The two versions of 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI

“…She does not reject the category entirely, but argues that 'the blanket-term "memorial reconstruction"' has often been misapplied. 17 In a detailed treatment designed to 'assemble evidence to support or refute a case for memorial reconstruction' in each play considered, Maguire carefully examines characteristics of particular Quarto texts. These criteria, often cited as evidence for memorial reconstruction, include unconformities in plot, echoes of other plays, expanded clown's role, formulaic phrases, few long speeches, and stylistic unevenness.…”

Editor's Note

“…One ramification of the noting habit was that notebooks needed to be created capable, in size terms, of recording about an hour's worth of preaching (sermons at the time being measured by the hour-glass). 21 Rather than taking to church the pens, ink, sand, knives, paper and blottingpaper that permanent text required, congregations seem often to have opted for 'tablebooks' -small notebooks that could be written on with graphite pencils or soft-metal pens. In 1625, Hall refers to the man who 'in the middest of the Sermon puls out his Tables in haste, as if he feared to leese that note' (in fact all he actually records is 'his forgotten errand, or nothing'): tablebooks were a stylish accoutrement, and some people wanted to draw attention to the fact that they had them.…”