The Merry Wives of Windsor, Q1: Provincial Touring and Adapted Texts

Abstract

RECENT STUDIES OF SOME OF SHAKESPEARE'S bad or dubious quartos have renewed interest in their authority in transmission of text. Gary Taylor, example, in his edition of Henry V, sees quarto version of that play as the result of a reconstruction by memory of play as performed-as performed, moreover, in a severely abridged and adapted text, such as might have been used by a troupe of actors touring provinces. The probable theatrical origin of this text, though transmitted by memory, makes Q an historical document of far more authority than hypotheses of any twentieth-century scholar. This view of Quarto causes Taylor to introduce some significant variants into his edition of play. Like quarto version of Henry V, quarto of The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602) has also been thought to be an abridged and adapted play.2 It is about half as long as folio text (1,624 lines to 2,729),3 and it contains several intriguing omissions and transpositions. W. W. Greg, whose examination of this text in his 1910 edition established theory of memorial reconstruction, with actor who played Host as probable culprit, some years later noticed signs of abridgment and concluded that heavy cutting and excision of two boys' parts suggest deliberate adaptation.4 Still later he surmised that Quarto, though a reported text, was intended for acting, presumably in country. .. .5 William Green, too, argues that this text represents an unauthorized version of play reconstructed by memory a provincial acting troupe.6 And William Bracy and Robert Burkhart maintain that text has been deliberately adapted, probably from an authoritative manuscript.7 The provincial acting hypothesis is, of course, not new. In 1919 Pollard and