Gabler, Hans Walter

English

Universität München: Elektronischen Publikationen

BESPRECHUNGEN 471 
schen Vorlage und Nachdichtung die besondere Beziehung der inhalt-
lichen Genauigkeit besteht, die durch die Heiligkeit des Textes garan-
tiert war. Die Leistung Sidneys war somit fast ausschließlich auf die 
strophische Strukturierung beschränkt. Bei der Analyse der Strophen-
füllung geht der Verfasser von überlegungen Wimsatts aus, die er 
systematisch auszubauen versucht. Er entwickelt dabei eine Typologie 
der Beziehungen zwischen Klang und Sinn in den durch Reim mitein-
ander verbundenen Zeilen. Dabei wird deutlich, daß Sidney dem Sinn-
parallelismus gegenüber dem gedanklichen Kontrast in den durch 
Reim gekoppelten Versen den Vorzug gab. Von dieser Beobachtung 
ausgehend vermag der Verfasser den Nachweis zu führen, daß bei 
Sidney die amplifizierende, gedanklich nur langsam fortschreitende und 
stets durch Rückverweise harmonisierende Strophenfüllung typisch 
ist. 
Es gehört zu den Vorzügen dieser Arbeit, daß sie nicht nur eine Fülle 
von Einsichten in die Struktur der Lyrik Sidneys bringt, sondern durch 
ihr sorgfältiges und methodisches Vorgehen ein Instrumentarium be-
reitstellt, das weitere Untersuchungen zur Strophenstruktur ermög-
licht. Erfreulich ist, daß der Verfasser bei allen Bemühungen um termi-
nologische Präzision und Differenzierung seine Ergebnisse in einer 
klaren Sprache vorträgt. Zu bedauern ist die strikte Trennung der 
Untersuchung zur Strophenfügung und zur Strophenfüllung, die zwar 
zur methodischen Klarheit beiträgt, aber sich auch insofern nachteilig 
auswirkt, als die Interdependenz zwischen interner Strophenfüllung 
und externer Strophenfügung nicht aufgezeigt werden kann. Trotz 
dieses Mangels stellt die Arbeit eine erfreuliche Leistung dar, durch die 
das Verständnis eines bis jetzt kaum erschlossenen Gebietes eine er-
hebl;che Förderung erfährt. 
KÖLN WOLFGANG WEISS 
J. K. Walton, The Quarto Copy fOT the First Folio of Shake8peare. 
Dublin: Dublin University Press, 1971, 306 S., E 5.00. 
A special task of twentieth-century Shakespearian textual scholar-
ship has been to throw light on the textual origins and on the processes 
of pre-printing transmission of the works of Shakespeare. By sophist-
icated methods of analysis of the extant printed texts, many problems 
of their origin and derivation have been solved. Yet some remain 
which have so far defeated scholarly ingenuity. These are connected 
largely with a group of six plays, Richard 111, King Lear, Troilus and 
Cressida, 2 Henry IV, Hamlet and Othello. For each ofthese plays, two 
authoritative, but different texts ('collateral substantive texts' in 
Alice Walker's phrase) exist in the textual witnesses of a quarto and 
the folio version respectively. In his new book, J. K. Walton proposes 
472 BESPRECHUNGEN 
a solution to the problems of their derivation and transmission. The 
nature of his evidence and the methods of procedure in his argument 
concern the reviewer. 
Professor Walton's point of departure is one of firm limitation in 
method. Rejecting from the outset all claims of bibliography to being 
the key discipline in textual scholarship (without, however, specifying 
whether he would consider a distinction in this respect between ana-
lytical, or pure, and textual, or applied, bibliography), he denies, in 
particular, the uses of bibliographical reasoning and procedure for the 
establishing of the genetic relationship of texts. Only a strictly non-
bibliographical evaluation of substantive readings is considered ad-
missible in all discussions of textual transmission. Substantive variants 
are sub-divided into 'definite errors' and 'indifferent variants' to pro-
vide the basis for determining textual provenance. It is only the "de-
finite error which we can be sure is an error without reference to any 
preconceived theory of the text" which can be used as evidence in ex-
ploring textual derivation. The 'indifferent variant' cannot be so used: 
for as it has "a meaning similar to the reading it replaces", it is subject 
to reappearing by multiple chance coincidence in several non-touching 
textual witnesses; this makes it unfit to demonstrate direct stemmatic 
links between them. Since first put forward in The Copy for the Folio 
Text of Richard 111 (Auckland, 1955), the division of 'indifferent va-
riants' and 'definite errors' has been somewhat refined, but the case it 
is being applied to in all of Part II of the present book has not essen-
tially altered. Professor Walton still holds that Folio Richard 111 was 
derived exclusively from Q3. He is, though through no fault of his 
own, unable to present new evidence from substantive readings which 
could incontrovertibly be classed as 'definite errors' to prove his case. 
The refinement by augmentation of his argument therefore lies in the 
long lists ofvariants, classified as 'indifferent', which are complied from 
all the Shakespeare plays which passed through ancestral series of 
quarto editions. These are set up to provide numerous analogies to the 
Q6F concurrences in Richard 111 which are thus dismissed as fortui-
tous. The appeal is to our belief in coincidence, but we would be more 
readily persuaded if at the same time some long-standing problems 
arising from Professor Walton's interpretation of the textual evidence 
had been effectively solved. Yet even in the instance of such a disturb-
ing Q6F concurrence as that at IV, iv, 536 ('newes' Q6F against 'tid-
ings' Q3), no note is taken of the suggestion that in the Folio line "Is 
colder Newes, but yet they must be told", 'newes' constitutes a Q5 
corruption transmitted via Q6 to F, while 'but' is the result of a conse-
quent metrical sophistication in the Folio. To remain true to establish-
ed criteria, Professor Walton apparently has no choice but to leave 
this variant among those which for their similarity of meaning are 
labelIed 'indifferent' and therefore can teU nothing about textual 
derivation. The question thus arises whether the definitions themselves 
of the established categories of substantive variants are sufficient. In a 
BESPRECHUNGEN 473 
versified text, it seems, the exclusive reliance on meaning in estab-
lishing variants as either 'definite' or 'indifferent' is unduly limiting. 
Dramatic speech in blank verse must surely be considered also in its 
metrical setting. In the case in question, the variant, then, we would 
argue, is no longer one of 'newes' VB. 'tidings' , but of 'newes, but, VB. 
'tidings' . While in a prose context the readings 'newes' and 'tidings' 
are admittedly very similar in meaning (and thus, according to Pro-
fessor Walton, 'indifferent'), the readings 'newes, but' and 'tidings' are 
alternative ways of fulfilling the verse pattern - one presumably cor-
rect, the other an error. They should be considered without reference to 
the close semantic relation between the two nouns (i. e. without any 
preconceived idea about the meaning of the text). Instead, the essen-
tiaIly formal nature of the verbal redundance, that is the doubling of 
conjunctions ('but yet'), within the blank verse (which itself is un-
affected by the verbal changes - i. e. remains invariant) should help to 
establish the definiteness of the error in the Folio line. Quite apart 
from any bibliographical arguments that might be (and have been 
elsewhere) brought to bear on the problem, it is in the nature of the 
distinction offered that a 'definite error', by its quality, constitutes 
proof of the pattern of textual relationship it fits into. The Q6 deri-
vation of F would, even in the terms of Professor Walton's classifica-
tion of variants, become demonstrable were the reading 'newes, but' 
accepted as a recognisable 'definite error'. The criteria, however, by 
which we would suggest it could be established as such do not enter 
his line of argument. It may be, then, that for the textual analysis of 
writings in verse his classes of variants are not sufficiently weIl distin-
guished and defined. 
Yet, doubts aside, the test of evaluation by 'definite errors' is the 
method of procedure by which Part III of the mono graph sets out to 
solve the question of quarta VB. manuscript copy for 2 Henry IV, Ham-
let and Othello. The other three plays are made to act as 'control texts'. 
For each of the six plays, the 'definite common errors' are listed and 
arranged in three classes. Class I "is made up of instances where there 
is evidence specifically indicating the printing of the F text f1'om a 
corrected quarto," class II "consists of graphic errors" which are deem-
ed to have originated in authorial or scribal manuscripts, and class III 
"consists of errors ... which do not bear any specific indication of the 
particular stage or stages in the transmission at which they were 
made." 
As far as the class I errors are concerned, this classification does 
nothing more than confirm what has been known a11 along, namely 
that Folio 2 Henry IV, Hamlet and Othella show no easily recognisable 
traces of having been printed from annotated quarto copy. Yet from 
the interpretation ofthe fact that the quarta and folio versions ofthese 
three plays contain common errors of the class II and class III varie-
ties only it is suggested that positive proof can be derived that their 
Folio texts were printed directly from manuscript. The assumption is 
474 BESPRECHUNGEN 
that the common errors were common errors of the manuscript arche-
type/original which were independently transmitted. This, of course, 
is precisely what we would like to be certain of, for if original errors 
were transmitted unchanged in two texts radiating from a common 
archetype, then original correct readings were also so transmitted, and 
all invariant readings of the collateral substantive textual witnesses 
would be mutually re-inforcing, while all their variants would be more 
closely definable aB to their nature and origin. In the absence of do-
cumentary manuscript material, however, the difficulty is that, with 
respect to their invariants, the texts of the extant quarto and folio 
witnesses cannot but be expected to be exactly the same, whether thus 
derived independently by radiation, or else by linear descent from the 
quarto. Even in the special situation created by quarto annotation, 
where radiating texts were actually conflated, or 'contaminated', the 
loss both of the fresh manuscript used for the annotation, and of the 
exemplar of the quarto annotated, prevents us from knowing which, if 
any, of the QF common invariant readings werere-confirm edby the ma-
nuscript, and thus (while we have no choice but to assume that they 
descended linearly from the quarto used aB copy) were in actual fact 
transmitted into the Folio text by radiating textual authority. One 
way oranother, it isself-evident that common invariants, whether er-
rors or correct readings, in collateral substantive texts - be their deri-
vation that of linear descent plus contamination, or of independent 
radiation - must have originated in a common lost stage of pre-print-
ing transmission. 
At this juncture, the potential value becomes clear of isolating, for 
further analysis, the 'definite errors' from the whole body of substan-
tive textual invariants. For only with errors is it meaningful to ask at 
which stage of the textual transmission they arose. But in order to 
prove positively which was their point of origin, specific criteria will 
have to be found which distinguish between errors in the common 
archetype/original, and errors which came about by the process of 
transferring a manuscript printer's copy into the earliest extant sub-
stantive printed text. Radiating descent of the quarto and folio vel'-
sions of a given text could be inferred only from the former, while the 
latter would suggest linear derivation of the invariant element of the 
Folio text, by way of a quarto annotated and used as copy, even in 
those cases where there is no further demonstrable connection, through 
error and/or common error as caused by the reprinting process, be-
tween the versions of the text in quarto and folio respectively. In the 
absence, then, in 2 Henry IV, Hamlet, and Othellv, of such class I er-
rors, and in view of the fact that cIass III comprises errorB whose ori-
gin cannot be determined, all the weight of the case for independent 
manuscript derivation of these three plays in the Folio must fall on the 
evidence from the class II errors. These, it is true, are seen to be much 
more numerouB in the collateral texts of 2 Henry IV, Hamlet and 
Othello than in those of Richard III, King Lear and Troilus and Cres-
BESPRECHUNGEN 475 
sida. If we can aeeept that they all could not have arisen anywhel"e but 
in a common lost manuseript source, the probability of independent 
manuseript derivation of the Folio versions of these plays must, from 
the evidenee, be regarded as high. 
Ascrutiny of an instanees classified as class II errors in the six plays 
indeed admits of viewing them all as graphie errors. The belief, how-
ever, that, as such, they an originated and where first present at a 
manuseript stage of transmission (surely an essential qualification 
under the circumstances), is seriously weakened by two of the four 
class II 'graphie errors' in Richard III. Coneerned here with minimizing 
the ineidence of class II errors (as Richard III is one ofthe plays whose 
Folio text was demonstrably printed from an annotated quarto copy), 
Professor Walton faithfully admits that one of them originated in Q3, 
the other in Q2. But if this is so, then the class II errors, as a body of 
evidenee, cannot carry the weight put on them. Rather, these two 
examples establish that there is no neeessary connection between the 
real (or even just apparent) classification of an error as a 'graphie er-
ror', and the assumption that all such errors originated at a manu-
script stage of transmission, let alone that they were an present in the 
ancestral manuscript eommon to two radiating textual deseendants. 
They may have originated or been present there, but they mayaIso 
have arisen, say, at the point of transfer of a manuscript into print for 
the first quarto. For even then they would make their appearance as 
common QF errors, if the Folio text was (after an) based on the quarto. 
They may, of course, still have been the result of 'graphie misreading'; 
but this only goes to show of how little use the evaluation and classi-
fieation of an error as a 'graphie error' is for the purposes of establish-
ing the genealogy of a text. 
When so mueh has been said, we must allow that a study setting 
out to discuss the quarto copy for the First Folio of Shakespeare can-
not perhaps be expeeted to be centrally coneerned with the question 
of manuscript copy for any plays therein eontained. But it is also clear 
that, for the whole group of collateral substantive texts, the problems 
of quarto and/or manuscript copy are so inextricably tied up with one 
another thatit isessential to base on positive demonstration adecision to 
exclude three of the six plays from further discussion under the head-
ing of quarto copy. Professor Walton has, however, excluded them on 
evidence which falls short of proving conclusive. Yet in the pursuit of 
his main subject, he has added new data worthy to be taken seriously 
in further considerations of the question of derivation of the Folio 
texts of 2 Henry IV, Hamlet and Gthello. In an interesting and sensible 
exploration of the special problem of collation and annotation of all 
the quartos used as copy for the Folio, a fruitful distinction is drawn 
between plays where, in eollating, reference may have been made only 
to stage directions and other theatrical aspects such as acting- version 
cuts and possibly speech-prefix revisions, and plays where the collation 
affected the texts themselves. Careful attention to the text was ap-
476 BESPRECHUNGEN 
parently only paid in those plays where the Folio reproduces a colla-
teral substantive text. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, for four 
plays - i. e. the three which were undoubtedly derived from annotated 
quarto copy, plus Richard 11 -distinct, and similar, patterns of a vary-
ing efficiency in the collation within each text are revealed. These 
patterns are established by estimating the proportion of definite errors 
corrected from act to act by the collator. Thus, the book's basic meth-
od of evaluation of substantive readings, in their most tangible form 
of errors, is put to its final use. 
The question of what manuscripts were used for the collation, and 
what manuscripts lay behind the authoritative quarto texts, is cur-
sorily only summed up at the end. From the point of view of the book's 
argument, it may not have needed further elaboration. But in view of 
our objection that it is the question of manuscript copy for the folio 
versions of three of the collateral substantive texts which is most 
seriously left unresolved, the conclusion is open-ended. The analysis of 
errors and their correction, to reveal the nature and the varying degree 
of efficiency of the collation which was carried out in preparation of 
quarto editions as printer's copy for the Folio, is appealing. Were its 
results set against the statement - which, however, is not further sub-
stantiated - that the assumption of quarto copy for Folio 2 Henry IV, 
Hamlet and Othello would, on the basis of error patterns observed, 
presuppose collation of a much higher thoroughness and uniformity 
than elsewhere, then perhaps yet another line of attack might be 
opened up on the problem of manuscript copy for these plays. A study 
of the manuscript copy for the First Folio on lines similar to those of 
the present one on quarto copy would have to be written. The book we 
have been presented with has indeed somewhat reduced the uncer-
tainties still persisting about quarto copy for the 1623 collection. Thus, 
from a refinement of traditional ways of textual analysis, partial re-
sults have been derived. But, for the very reason of its conscious limi-
tation in method, J. K. Walton's mongraph has not been able to solve 
fully the complex problem of quarto copy for the First Folio of Shake-
speare. 
MÜNCHEN HANS WALTER GABLER 
Michael Manheim, The Weak King Dilemma in the Shakespearean 
HiBtory Play. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1973, x + 198 S., 
$8.00. 
Ever since the publication of E. M. W. Tillyard's monumental study 
in 1944', the Elizabethan history play, till then a rather neglected 
field of research in which hardly more than questions of sources, 
'Shakespeare's HiBtory Plays (Harmondsworth, 1962 ['1944]). 


Rezension von: J.K. Walton: The Quatro copy for the First Folio of Shakespeare: Dublin, 1971

Open Access LMU

BESPRECHUNGEN 471 schen Vorlage und Nachdichtung die besondere Beziehung der inhalt-lichen Genauigkeit besteht, die durch die Heiligkeit des Textes garan-tiert war. Die Leistung Sidneys war somit fast ausschließlich auf die strophische Strukturierung beschränkt. Bei der Analyse der Strophen-füllung geht der Verfasser von überlegungen Wimsatts aus, die er systematisch auszubauen versucht. Er entwickelt dabei eine Typologie der Beziehungen zwischen Klang und Sinn in den durch Reim mitein-ander verbundenen Zeilen. Dabei wird deutlich, daß Sidney dem Sinn-parallelismus gegenüber dem gedanklichen Kontrast in den durch Reim gekoppelten Versen den Vorzug gab. Von dieser Beobachtung ausgehend vermag der Verfasser den Nachweis zu führen, daß bei Sidney die amplifizierende, gedanklich nur langsam fortschreitende und stets durch Rückverweise harmonisierende Strophenfüllung typisch ist. Es gehört zu den Vorzügen dieser Arbeit, daß sie nicht nur eine Fülle von Einsichten in die Struktur der Lyrik Sidneys bringt, sondern durch ihr sorgfältiges und methodisches Vorgehen ein Instrumentarium be-reitstellt, das weitere Untersuchungen zur Strophenstruktur ermög-licht. Erfreulich ist, daß der Verfasser bei allen Bemühungen um termi-nologische Präzision und Differenzierung seine Ergebnisse in einer klaren Sprache vorträgt. Zu bedauern ist die strikte Trennung der Untersuchung zur Strophenfügung und zur Strophenfüllung, die zwar zur methodischen Klarheit beiträgt, aber sich auch insofern nachteilig auswirkt, als die Interdependenz zwischen interner Strophenfüllung und externer Strophenfügung nicht aufgezeigt werden kann. Trotz dieses Mangels stellt die Arbeit eine erfreuliche Leistung dar, durch die das Verständnis eines bis jetzt kaum erschlossenen Gebietes eine er-hebl;che Förderung erfährt. KÖLN WOLFGANG WEISS J. K. Walton, The Quarto Copy fOT the First Folio of Shake8peare. Dublin: Dublin University Press, 1971, 306 S., E 5.00. A special task of twentieth-century Shakespearian textual scholar-ship has been to throw light on the textual origins and on the processes of pre-printing transmission of the works of Shakespeare. By sophist-icated methods of analysis of the extant printed texts, many problems of their origin and derivation have been solved. Yet some remain which have so far defeated scholarly ingenuity. These are connected largely with a group of six plays, Richard 111, King Lear, Troilus and Cressida, 2 Henry IV, Hamlet and Othello. For each ofthese plays, two authoritative, but different texts ('collateral substantive texts' in Alice Walker's phrase) exist in the textual witnesses of a quarto and the folio version respectively. In his new book, J. K. Walton proposes 472 BESPRECHUNGEN a solution to the problems of their derivation and transmission. The nature of his evidence and the methods of procedure in his argument concern the reviewer. Professor Walton's point of departure is one of firm limitation in method. Rejecting from the outset all claims of bibliography to being the key discipline in textual scholarship (without, however, specifying whether he would consider a distinction in this respect between ana-lytical, or pure, and textual, or applied, bibliography), he denies, in particular, the uses of bibliographical reasoning and procedure for the establishing of the genetic relationship of texts. Only a strictly non-bibliographical evaluation of substantive readings is considered ad-missible in all discussions of textual transmission. Substantive variants are sub-divided into 'definite errors' and 'indifferent variants' to pro-vide the basis for determining textual provenance. It is only the "de-finite error which we can be sure is an error without reference to any preconceived theory of the text" which can be used as evidence in ex-ploring textual derivation. The 'indifferent variant' cannot be so used: for as it has "a meaning similar to the reading it replaces", it is subject to reappearing by multiple chance coincidence in several non-touching textual witnesses; this makes it unfit to demonstrate direct stemmatic links between them. Since first put forward in The Copy for the Folio Text of Richard 111 (Auckland, 1955), the division of 'indifferent va-riants' and 'definite errors' has been somewhat refined, but the case it is being applied to in all of Part II of the present book has not essen-tially altered. Professor Walton still holds that Folio Richard 111 was derived exclusively from Q3. He is, though through no fault of his own, unable to present new evidence from substantive readings which could incontrovertibly be classed as 'definite errors' to prove his case. The refinement by augmentation of his argument therefore lies in the long lists ofvariants, classified as 'indifferent', which are complied from all the Shakespeare plays which passed through ancestral series of quarto editions. These are set up to provide numerous analogies to the Q6F concurrences in Richard 111 which are thus dismissed as fortui-tous. The appeal is to our belief in coincidence, but we would be more readily persuaded if at the same time some long-standing problems arising from Professor Walton's interpretation of the textual evidence had been effectively solved. Yet even in the instance of such a disturb-ing Q6F concurrence as that at IV, iv, 536 ('newes' Q6F against 'tid-ings' Q3), no note is taken of the suggestion that in the Folio line "Is colder Newes, but yet they must be told", 'newes' constitutes a Q5 corruption transmitted via Q6 to F, while 'but' is the result of a conse-quent metrical sophistication in the Folio. To remain true to establish-ed criteria, Professor Walton apparently has no choice but to leave this variant among those which for their similarity of meaning are labelIed 'indifferent' and therefore can teU nothing about textual derivation. The question thus arises whether the definitions themselves of the established categories of substantive variants are sufficient. In a BESPRECHUNGEN 473 versified text, it seems, the exclusive reliance on meaning in estab-lishing variants as either 'definite' or 'indifferent' is unduly limiting. Dramatic speech in blank verse must surely be considered also in its metrical setting. In the case in question, the variant, then, we would argue, is no longer one of 'newes' VB. 'tidings' , but of 'newes, but, VB. 'tidings' . While in a prose context the readings 'newes' and 'tidings' are admittedly very similar in meaning (and thus, according to Pro-fessor Walton, 'indifferent'), the readings 'newes, but' and 'tidings' are alternative ways of fulfilling the verse pattern - one presumably cor-rect, the other an error. They should be considered without reference to the close semantic relation between the two nouns (i. e. without any preconceived idea about the meaning of the text). Instead, the essen-tiaIly formal nature of the verbal redundance, that is the doubling of conjunctions ('but yet'), within the blank verse (which itself is un-affected by the verbal changes - i. e. remains invariant) should help to establish the definiteness of the error in the Folio line. Quite apart from any bibliographical arguments that might be (and have been elsewhere) brought to bear on the problem, it is in the nature of the distinction offered that a 'definite error', by its quality, constitutes proof of the pattern of textual relationship it fits into. The Q6 deri-vation of F would, even in the terms of Professor Walton's classifica-tion of variants, become demonstrable were the reading 'newes, but' accepted as a recognisable 'definite error'. The criteria, however, by which we would suggest it could be established as such do not enter his line of argument. It may be, then, that for the textual analysis of writings in verse his classes of variants are not sufficiently weIl distin-guished and defined. Yet, doubts aside, the test of evaluation by 'definite errors' is the method of procedure by which Part III of the mono graph sets out to solve the question of quarta VB. manuscript copy for 2 Henry IV, Ham-let and Othello. The other three plays are made to act as 'control texts'. For each of the six plays, the 'definite common errors' are listed and arranged in three classes. Class I "is made up of instances where there is evidence specifically indicating the printing of the F text f1'om a corrected quarto," class II "consists of graphic errors" which are deem-ed to have originated in authorial or scribal manuscripts, and class III "consists of errors ... which do not bear any specific indication of the particular stage or stages in the transmission at which they were made." As far as the class I errors are concerned, this classification does nothing more than confirm what has been known a11 along, namely that Folio 2 Henry IV, Hamlet and Othella show no easily recognisable traces of having been printed from annotated quarto copy. Yet from the interpretation ofthe fact that the quarta and folio versions ofthese three plays contain common errors of the class II and class III varie-ties only it is suggested that positive proof can be derived that their Folio texts were printed directly from manuscript. The assumption is 474 BESPRECHUNGEN that the common errors were common errors of the manuscript arche-type/original which were independently transmitted. This, of course, is precisely what we would like to be certain of, for if original errors were transmitted unchanged in two texts radiating from a common archetype, then original correct readings were also so transmitted, and all invariant readings of the collateral substantive textual witnesses would be mutually re-inforcing, while all their variants would be more closely definable aB to their nature and origin. In the absence of do-cumentary manuscript material, however, the difficulty is that, with respect to their invariants, the texts of the extant quarto and folio witnesses cannot but be expected to be exactly the same, whether thus derived independently by radiation, or else by linear descent from the quarto. Even in the special situation created by quarto annotation, where radiating texts were actually conflated, or 'contaminated', the loss both of the fresh manuscript used for the annotation, and of the exemplar of the quarto annotated, prevents us from knowing which, if any, of the QF common invariant readings werere-confirm edby the ma-nuscript, and thus (while we have no choice but to assume that they descended linearly from the quarto used aB copy) were in actual fact transmitted into the Folio text by radiating textual authority. One way oranother, it isself-evident that common invariants, whether er-rors or correct readings, in collateral substantive texts - be their deri-vation that of linear descent plus contamination, or of independent radiation - must have originated in a common lost stage of pre-print-ing transmission. At this juncture, the potential value becomes clear of isolating, for further analysis, the 'definite errors' from the whole body of substan-tive textual invariants. For only with errors is it meaningful to ask at which stage of the textual transmission they arose. But in order to prove positively which was their point of origin, specific criteria will have to be found which distinguish between errors in the common archetype/original, and errors which came about by the process of transferring a manuscript printer's copy into the earliest extant sub-stantive printed text. Radiating descent of the quarto and folio vel'-sions of a given text could be inferred only from the former, while the latter would suggest linear derivation of the invariant element of the Folio text, by way of a quarto annotated and used as copy, even in those cases where there is no further demonstrable connection, through error and/or common error as caused by the reprinting process, be-tween the versions of the text in quarto and folio respectively. In the absence, then, in 2 Henry IV, Hamlet, and Othellv, of such class I er-rors, and in view of the fact that cIass III comprises errorB whose ori-gin cannot be determined, all the weight of the case for independent manuscript derivation of these three plays in the Folio must fall on the evidence from the class II errors. These, it is true, are seen to be much more numerouB in the collateral texts of 2 Henry IV, Hamlet and Othello than in those of Richard III, King Lear and Troilus and Cres-BESPRECHUNGEN 475 sida. If we can aeeept that they all could not have arisen anywhel"e but in a common lost manuseript source, the probability of independent manuseript derivation of the Folio versions of these plays must, from the evidenee, be regarded as high. Ascrutiny of an instanees classified as class II errors in the six plays indeed admits of viewing them all as graphie errors. The belief, how-ever, that, as such, they an originated and where first present at a manuseript stage of transmission (surely an essential qualification under the circumstances), is seriously weakened by two of the four class II 'graphie errors' in Richard III. Coneerned here with minimizing the ineidence of class II errors (as Richard III is one ofthe plays whose Folio text was demonstrably printed from an annotated quarto copy), Professor Walton faithfully admits that one of them originated in Q3, the other in Q2. But if this is so, then the class II errors, as a body of evidenee, cannot carry the weight put on them. Rather, these two examples establish that there is no neeessary connection between the real (or even just apparent) classification of an error as a 'graphie er-ror', and the assumption that all such errors originated at a manu-script stage of transmission, let alone that they were an present in the ancestral manuscript eommon to two radiating textual deseendants. They may have originated or been present there, but they mayaIso have arisen, say, at the point of transfer of a manuscript into print for the first quarto. For even then they would make their appearance as common QF errors, if the Folio text was (after an) based on the quarto. They may, of course, still have been the result of 'graphie misreading'; but this only goes to show of how little use the evaluation and classi-fieation of an error as a 'graphie error' is for the purposes of establish-ing the genealogy of a text. When so mueh has been said, we must allow that a study setting out to discuss the quarto copy for the First Folio of Shakespeare can-not perhaps be expeeted to be centrally coneerned with the question of manuscript copy for any plays therein eontained. But it is also clear that, for the whole group of collateral substantive texts, the problems of quarto and/or manuscript copy are so inextricably tied up with one another thatit isessential to base on positive demonstration adecision to exclude three of the six plays from further discussion under the head-ing of quarto copy. Professor Walton has, however, excluded them on evidence which falls short of proving conclusive. Yet in the pursuit of his main subject, he has added new data worthy to be taken seriously in further considerations of the question of derivation of the Folio texts of 2 Henry IV, Hamlet and Gthello. In an interesting and sensible exploration of the special problem of collation and annotation of all the quartos used as copy for the Folio, a fruitful distinction is drawn between plays where, in eollating, reference may have been made only to stage directions and other theatrical aspects such as acting- version cuts and possibly speech-prefix revisions, and plays where the collation affected the texts themselves. Careful attention to the text was ap-476 BESPRECHUNGEN parently only paid in those plays where the Folio reproduces a colla-teral substantive text. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, for four plays - i. e. the three which were undoubtedly derived from annotated quarto copy, plus Richard 11 -distinct, and similar, patterns of a vary-ing efficiency in the collation within each text are revealed. These patterns are established by estimating the proportion of definite errors corrected from act to act by the collator. Thus, the book's basic meth-od of evaluation of substantive readings, in their most tangible form of errors, is put to its final use. The question of what manuscripts were used for the collation, and what manuscripts lay behind the authoritative quarto texts, is cur-sorily only summed up at the end. From the point of view of the book's argument, it may not have needed further elaboration. But in view of our objection that it is the question of manuscript copy for the folio versions of three of the collateral substantive texts which is most seriously left unresolved, the conclusion is open-ended. The analysis of errors and their correction, to reveal the nature and the varying degree of efficiency of the collation which was carried out in preparation of quarto editions as printer's copy for the Folio, is appealing. Were its results set against the statement - which, however, is not further sub-stantiated - that the assumption of quarto copy for Folio 2 Henry IV, Hamlet and Othello would, on the basis of error patterns observed, presuppose collation of a much higher thoroughness and uniformity than elsewhere, then perhaps yet another line of attack might be opened up on the problem of manuscript copy for these plays. A study of the manuscript copy for the First Folio on lines similar to those of the present one on quarto copy would have to be written. The book we have been presented with has indeed somewhat reduced the uncer-tainties still persisting about quarto copy for the 1623 collection. Thus, from a refinement of traditional ways of textual analysis, partial re-sults have been derived. But, for the very reason of its conscious limi-tation in method, J. K. Walton's mongraph has not been able to solve fully the complex problem of quarto copy for the First Folio of Shake-speare. MÜNCHEN HANS WALTER GABLER Michael Manheim, The Weak King Dilemma in the Shakespearean HiBtory Play. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1973, x + 198 S., $8.00. Ever since the publication of E. M. W. Tillyard's monumental study in 1944', the Elizabethan history play, till then a rather neglected field of research in which hardly more than questions of sources, 'Shakespeare's HiBtory Plays (Harmondsworth, 1962 ['1944]). 

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Rezension von: J.K. Walton: The Quatro copy for the First Folio of Shakespeare: Dublin, 1971

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