Jeremy Geist
Dr. Judith Dunbar
Shakespeare’s Tragedies
3/15/12
Geist 1
King Lear or King Lear?: Quarto, Folio, and a Matter of Scale
William Shakespeare’s King Lear is a tragedy on two separate levels, the macro
and the micro. On a large scale, we see the ruler of a country cast from his perch and
tormented until he dies, a man with tremendous power suffering through the whims of the
world and his own faltering mental health. On a smaller scale, we see a man become
rejected by his family and lose all of his friends, finally reconciling with the people he
rejected only when it was too late. While both of these aspects are represented in King
Lear, whether the balance shifts toward one tragedy or another depends on the version, as
certain additions and changes emphasize either a focused or a general vision of King
Lear’s tragedy. These interpretations, in turn, serve to answer some of the many
ambiguities of the play.
Other than King Lear, there are three named characters present at the final scene.
The first is the Earl of Kent, Lear’s faithful servant who stays with him even when he is
out in the pouring storm. Kent is the only person here who has also suffered injustice at
the hands of Lear’s daughters, and is the closest in situation to the King. His loyalty is
unquestionable and his respect for Lear is deep. One of Kent’s lines changes from the
Quarto to the Folio version, a tense shift from “If fortune bragged of two she loved or
hated, / one of them we behold” (Quarto 24.275-76) to “If fortune brag” (Folio 5.3.253).
The difference in meaning between these two lines is difficult to parse, but according to
the Norton version’s commentary, the Quarto version means “If Fortune bragged of two
she treated only with good or terrible extremes” (Quarto 24.275 n.7), while the Folio
Geist 2
means “If there were only two supreme examples in the world of Fortune’s ability to
raise up and cast down, Lear would be one; alternatively, we are each of us one” (Folio
5.3.253 n.6).
The difference between these interpretations is one of omniscience. Quarto Kent
makes an objective statement of King Lear: that he has only either experienced the
highest points of life or the lowest. It gives the opinion not of Kent but of an imagined
“Fortune” construct, implying that Kent is merely conveying the views of a being greater
than himself. On the other hand, Kent in the Folio makes a personal statement that could
also refer to himself. There is no omniscience here, and if we accept the hypothesis that
Kent was also referring to himself he could even be incorrect – after all, we have just
finished observing Gloucester being led around by his son, who is forced to keep his
identity a secret. Kent’s statement becomes less of a judgment of Fortune and more of a
judgment of Kent, a statement spoken to an old friend. Kent’s change in tense is intended
to, rather than say “look upon his works, ye mighty, and despair,” say “look how we have
ended up, my friend.”
The greatest change from the Quarto to the First Folio is the character that speaks
the closing lines of the play:
The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest have borne most. We that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long. (Conflated 5.3.317-20)
Geist 3
In the Quarto, the duke of Albany delivers this line. Of the three present at the
scene, Albany is the most detached from Lear. Goneril, his wife, forced him into inaction,
and this position gives him the smallest part of the three, disappearing for the middle of
the play. He was also unable to interact with Lear during the storm scene, Lear’s angriest
and most vulnerable moment. Furthermore, many of Albany’s lines in the final scene
have more to do with conquest and the division of the kingdom than King Lear.
In this context, the choice to have Albany give the final lines of the play gives
him the position of an agent of closure. The Quarto’s arrangement places Kent’s line in
between Albany’s lines: “I have a journey, sir, shortly to go: My master calls, and I must
not say no” (Quarto 24.318). Thus, instead of each character discussing Lear’s death,
Albany is directly replying to Kent. Kent’s line could carry different meanings depending
on the context – suicide, self-imposed exile, or any varying number of fates – but they all
respond to Albany’s offer of splitting Lear’s former kingdom among him and Edgar in
the negative. Albany’s response places the importance of rebuilding the shattered state in
front of Kent’s honor, moving the focus of the final scene to the large scale from the
small.
However, when Edgar delivers the lines, the exact opposite occurs. Edgar is the
closest to Lear in terms of his fall from comfort and has experienced much of Lear’s story
as well. Additionally, Edgar could be considered to have suffered as much as Lear, both
in terms of physical pain (as his 2.3.1-21 speech describes) and in terms of being cast
away as the bastard son of Gloucester. Though he did not directly aid Lear, he supported
his father, Lear’s friend and ally, and is in the position to give the greatest empathy.
Geist 4
Since Edgar stands in such an empathetic position, it is no great leap to say that
when he says the final lines in the Folio and conflated versions of King Lear, it gives the
lines an extremely personal feel. When Edgar says these lines, Lear’s story becomes
tragic, not because he is a king, but because he is King Lear. Despite all Edgar had gone
through, he understates his suffering as opposed to Lear: “The oldest have borne most.
We that are young / Shall never see so much, nor live so long” (Conflated 3.5.319-20). In
this context, the final lines of King Lear lament the suffering of a man – a powerful man,
certainly, but nevertheless a man.
The other major change from the Quarto to the Folio version of King Lear was the
addition of Lear’s new final line: “Look on her, look, her lips / look there, look there!”
(Conflated 3.5.308-9). In all likelihood, the line refers to the body of Cordelia, whom
Lear has addressed for much of the final scene. Given the importance of one’s final
words, it is obvious that Lear cares for Cordelia, but the scene also carries implications
that answer one of the play’s great ambiguities: how clear is Lear’s mind at this final
scene? Given that he now regrets his decision to exile his daughter at the beginning of the
play, and the slight change from Albany’s line from “He knows not what he sees”
(Quarto 24.287) to “He knows not what he says” (Conflated 3.5.292), we see hints that
Lear has finally regained his faculties in time to apologize to Cordelia by sacrificing his
last words to her. The true tragedy of Lear becomes his loss of the ones he loved, not his
kingdom.
The differences between the Quarto and Folio versions of the final King Lear cast
the same events in a different focus: on one hand, the large scale tragedy about the loss of
empire and fortune’s ever-turning wheel, and on the other, the personal tragedy about a
Geist 5
man who suddenly lost all those people who were dear to him in a few fateful days.
Opinions vary about who should speak the final lines–If Albany was to speak them, it
brings closure onto the status of Lear’s fallen kingdom, but Edgar makes the tragedy far
more personal. Because of the context in which a modern audience sees King Lear, used
to the masterpieces of small-scale tragedy such as Long Day’s Journey into Night and A
Raisin in the Sun, Edgar would be the better decision at present, but both have strong
points and the choice is difficult.
Geist 6
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. Tragedies. The Norton
Shakespeare. Based on the Oxford Edition. Gen. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 2nd ed.
New York: Norton, 2008.