Why did Quartos have so many different versions of Shakespeare's plays existed over time?

Answer 1

Two reasons: #1 simply because they were of so high quality that people of that time actually took the time to save his plays which was rare in that day in age. There were several notable playwrites of that day and age but no one really knows them because their plays weren't saved. #2 Because people continue to enjoy them and debate the true meanings behind all of his plays and characters.

Answer 2

There have always been different versions of the plays. The version of King Lear in Quarto form is quite different from that in the Folio, and parts of it are not dramatically compatible. The First Quarto, Second Quarto and Folio versions of Hamlet are likewise different. The reason for this is probably that Shakespeare and the company fiddled with the plays all the time--revising them and adding topical material. The only copy of Macbeth which has come down to us suggest that it was a late revision with new material added by another playwright, probably Middleton.

This process did not stop after Shakespeare's death. During the Restoration, the plays were modified to suit the taste of the times: King Lear was given a happy ending for Cordelia; new songs were written for Macbeth's witches. Parts the actors didn't like were cut and they wrote new speeches to make the characters' motivations more simple and direct.

More recently, theatrical taste prefers shorter plays, so performances of the plays tend to cut away less crucial parts to shorten the runtime. This is particularly true of film versions. And people continue to fiddle with the scripts by moving dialogue from one part of the play to another (see Welles's Macbeth or Zeffirelli's Hamlet for examples)

Modern approaches often are less respectful to Shakespeare's text than at previous times. Something like Kurosawa's Ran not only is entirely in Japanese, but introduces new characters and different motivations to the framework of Shakespeare's play King Lear. It is in effect a new script. The same is true for "modern language versions" which retain some elements of the plot structure of Shakespeare's plays but totally change the dialogue and character motivations. These are essentially totally new plays using the story line of Shakespeare's plays. However, since Shakespeare almost always stole his story lines from someone else, they are the least characteristic parts of his plays. The part that is uniquely Shakespeare, and which makes his plays great--his poetic language--has been removed in such versions.

Answer 3

There are, or rather were, a number of versions of the Hamlet story apart from Shakespeare's, both before and after him. It is a story with many possibilities.

Shakespeare's play came in three different versions: The First Quarto of 1603, the Second Quarto of 1604, and the Folio version of 1623. Other early copies were basically reprints of the 1604 quarto. The three versions are quite distinct and contain words and even passages which the others do not.

Most editors base their versions on either the Folio or the Second Quarto, but they still have to decide whether to leave out the parts in F but not in Q2, the parts of Q2 that are not in F, whether to include everything in either, or just the parts that are in both. And when parts are in both, they might use different words. For example, F has in 1,2 "O, that this too too solid flesh would melt", but Q2 has "O that this too too sallied flesh would melt." Well, which one should you use? And if you decide on Q2, what the heck does "sallied" mean? Some editors have decided that it means "sullied" and they have replaced "sallied" with "sullied".

It is not uncommon for editors to completely change words in this way; one editor has decided that he doesn't like Shakespeare's name for the heroine of Cymbeline, and has changed it to "Innogen" throughout the play. This is like changing "Hamlet" to "Hamnet" throughout the play Hamlet (or do I mean Hamnet).

When you realize how free and easy editors are with the plays, you see how there can be a lot of different versions depending on the editors.

Or possibly you are wondering why Hamlet has been made into many more films than any other Shakespeare play. That's easy. It's Shakespeare's greatest play, and the part that every actor and a great many actresses would love to play.

Answer 4

to make it addapt over time and progress with the language.

Answer 5

To make it adapt over time and progress with the language.