Daniel: The version of King Lear you probably read in school? It’s a fake. A literary Frankenstein, stitched together by editors centuries after Shakespeare died. Today, we’re finding the real Lear. Sophia: A fake? Come on, Daniel, it's Shakespeare! It’s one of the cornerstones of English literature. How can it be a fake? Daniel: I know it sounds like heresy, but that's the explosive argument at the heart of the book we're diving into today: the updated critical edition of The Tragedy of King Lear, edited by the scholar Jay L. Halio. Sophia: Okay, so this isn't just the play itself, it's a book about the play. A kind of instruction manual for a masterpiece. Daniel: Exactly. And Halio’s big, bold move was to challenge a centuries-old tradition. For a long time, editors would take the two different early versions of King Lear and kind of… mash them together to create what they thought was the "best" version. Halio argues that this practice, called conflation, creates a play that never actually existed in Shakespeare's time. Sophia: Two different versions? I thought there was just… King Lear. Daniel: That's the puzzle. Halio’s edition makes a principled choice. He says we have two distinct plays, both with "equal authority," and he presents just one—the later version—as a coherent, standalone work of art. It forces us to ask what we’re really reading when we pick up a classic.

Sophia: Alright, you have my full attention. But you have to break this down for me. 'Quarto,' 'Folio.' Layman's terms, please. What are we talking about here? Daniel: Great question. Think of it like a modern movie. The first version, the Quarto, was published in 1608. It's a small, almost pamphlet-like book. The book argues this version likely came from Shakespeare's own "rough drafts" or "foul papers." It's like the early workprint of a film—raw, a little messy, but full of the author's initial, unfiltered ideas. Sophia: Okay, so the Quarto is the early cut. What's the Folio? Daniel: The Folio came later, in 1623, as part of the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. It's a much bigger, more prestigious book. Halio and other scholars believe the Folio text was based on a "manuscript used in the playhouses." This is the theatrical cut. It's been revised, tightened, and adapted for performance by Shakespeare's own acting company, the King's Men. It’s leaner, faster, and in some ways, more brutal. Sophia: That's a great analogy. But wait. If the Quarto—the rough draft—has scenes and lines that the Folio doesn't, and they're good scenes, why not just combine them? Isn't the best version the one with all the good stuff? I want the director's cut with all the deleted scenes put back in! Daniel: That is the exact question that has driven editors for 200 years! And it sounds logical. But Halio’s book argues that doing so fundamentally breaks the play's structure and rhythm. Let me give you the most powerful example. There's an absolutely astonishing scene in the Quarto that is completely missing from the Folio. Sophia: Oh, I'm ready. Hit me. Daniel: It's the mock trial. In Act 3, Lear has been thrown out into the storm. He's lost his mind. He takes shelter in a hovel with the Fool and Edgar, who is disguised as a mad beggar named Poor Tom. And in his madness, Lear decides to stage a trial of his wicked daughters, Goneril and Regan. Sophia: He puts them on trial? In a shack? In the middle of a storm? Daniel: Yes! He appoints the mad beggar Edgar as the "robed man of justice" and the Fool as his associate. He hallucinates his daughters are there—he points to a stool and says, "She kicked the poor king her father!" He puts them on trial for their crimes. It is one of an audience's most heartbreaking and theatrically brilliant depictions of a mind completely shattered by grief and injustice. Sophia: Wow. That sounds incredible. A cornerstone scene, surely. Daniel: You'd think so. But this entire, incredible scene? It's only in the Quarto. It was completely cut from the Folio version, the one that was actually performed. Sophia: They cut that? Why on earth would they cut that? Daniel: That's the million-dollar question. The book suggests a few reasons. Maybe it was to tighten the play for performance, to keep the action moving relentlessly forward. The Folio is about 300 lines shorter than the Quarto. Or maybe, the reviser—likely Shakespeare himself—felt that the theme of "mock justice" was already so powerfully explored in the actual injustice of the following scene, where Gloucester is brutally blinded. Adding the mock trial might have felt redundant. Sophia: So putting it back in, which many popular editions do, gives you this amazing scene, but it might mess with the play's overall pacing and thematic focus as it was performed. Daniel: Precisely. You get a play with a different rhythm, a different feel. You get the editor's version, not Shakespeare's revised theatrical version. You get the Frankenstein.

Daniel: And this idea of revision and cutting isn't just something editors did. Shakespeare himself was the master reviser. The whole reason Lear is a soul-crushing tragedy is because he took a story that was supposed to have a happy ending and deliberately broke it. Sophia: A happy ending? For King Lear? No way. I don't believe you. Daniel: It's true! The story of King Leir was an ancient British legend, well-known in Shakespeare's time. It was even a successful play by another author just a few years before his. And in those versions, it's basically a folktale. The book points to a specific folkloric tradition, the "Love like salt" story. Sophia: "Love like salt"? What's that? Daniel: It's a classic fairy tale motif. A king asks his three daughters how much they love him. The two eldest give these gushing, flattering answers. "I love you more than all the gold in the world!" The youngest, the Cordelia figure, says something simple and honest. She says, "I love you as fresh meat loves salt." Sophia: That's a bit of a weird answer. Daniel: It is, but it's profound! It's essential, necessary, life-giving. But the king, being a vain old fool, doesn't get it. He's furious at this plain answer and banishes her. She goes off, marries a prince, and later, she invites her father to a great feast. But she gives one secret instruction to the chefs. Sophia: Let me guess. No salt. Daniel: Exactly. The king is served these magnificent, beautiful dishes, but they all taste like ash. They're bland, lifeless. And in that moment, tasting the unsalted food, he finally understands the depth and necessity of his youngest daughter's love. He weeps, they are reconciled, and they all live happily ever after. Sophia: Wow. So that's Cordelia's "Nothing" speech. But in the original, the father gets it and they're reunited. That's a world away from Shakespeare's ending. Daniel: A world away. Shakespeare takes that hopeful, redemptive structure and systematically shatters it. The book shows how he masterfully remixed his sources. He takes the Gloucester subplot—the blind father with the good son and the evil bastard son—from a popular romance called Sidney's Arcadia to create a parallel story that doubles down on the theme of parental blindness and filial cruelty. Sophia: So he's layering tragedy on top of tragedy. Daniel: He's building a universe of suffering. He adds the character of the Fool, who doesn't exist in the old stories, to be a constant, witty, heartbreaking chorus of Lear's folly. And then, the most devastating change of all. At the very end of the play, Cordelia returns with an army. She finds Lear. They have that beautiful, quiet reconciliation scene. The audience, knowing the old story, is breathing a sigh of relief. The restoration is here. Sophia: The happy ending is coming. Daniel: And then Shakespeare just rips the floor out from under you. He has them lose the battle. They're captured. And in the final scene, Lear walks on stage carrying Cordelia's dead body, howling in grief. He gives one of the most desolate lines in all of literature: "Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, / And thou no breath at all?" He took a story of redemption and turned it into a story about the absolute, unanswerable absurdity of existence.

Sophia: That is just brutal. So we have two layers of transformation. First, Shakespeare takes a happy story and engineers it into the ultimate tragedy. Then, for centuries after, editors take his two tragic versions and create a 'conflated' version he never wrote. It's like a game of telephone with a masterpiece. Daniel: It is. And it reveals that a play, especially from that era, isn't a fixed monument carved in stone. It's a living, breathing, evolving text. This book makes a powerful case that the Folio version, the theatrical cut, is a leaner, faster, more theatrically relentless play. The cuts, like that mock trial scene, might sacrifice some moments of psychological poetry for pure, forward momentum. It’s a different experience. Sophia: It's less about which version is 'right' and more about understanding that they are different, and that choice matters. Daniel: Exactly. It forces us to ask a really fundamental question: what is a play? Is it the author's first, most expansive draft? Is it the version that was honed and performed for an audience? Or is it some 'ideal' version that an editor creates in a library 200 years later? Halio's edition argues for the integrity of the performed text. Sophia: It makes you wonder what you're really getting when you pick up a 'classic.' Are you reading the author's vision, or an editor's? And after hearing all this, which one would you rather experience? Daniel: That's the question. And it’s a great one to leave our listeners with. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Do you want the "director's cut" with everything thrown in, or the tight, theatrical version? Let us know. Sophia: This is Aibrary, signing off.