One of the important areas of contention among editors of Shakespeare plays is explained very well in the introduction to the chapter entitled, Textual Criticism and Bibliography from Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1945-2000, edited by Russ McDonald. In it, he summarizes the issue as follows: In the past the assumption was that "a skilled editorial weaving of folio and quarto readings will give us an authentic record of Shakespeare's original intentions..." But now there is a growing movement toward looking at the many quartos and the Folio in a very different way, that being that "the multiple versions in which the plays exist represent different, authorially created texts of these plays", and therefore the belief underlying the old attitude is a mistaken one, and there is no ideal, perfect version that editors should be trying to re-create. It's a very interesting field of study, certainly, and one with big implications for everyone interested in Shakespeare. And I mention all of this today for two reasons: first, to try to balance out yesterday's post in which I went off a bit regarding what I feel is a wrong direction in Shakespeare scholarship (i.e. appropriating his writing for ideological purposes). In other words, I think the opposite about this field of study - this one is a right direction for it. The second reason is that it relates to some interesting things that I learned about the different versions of 2 Henry VI, which I'll be writing about tomorrow.