Dr. Faustus: the A-Text (review)

144 Reviews Morgan concludes a rich and thought-provoking investigation of the Cheshire 'military community' with a consideration of 'its pivotd role in the factiond warfare' of thereignofRichard II, offering a useful perspective and new detdl on the crisis of 1387, therisingof 1393, the king's Cheshire retinue of 1397-9, the rebeUions of 1400 and 1403. Michael J. Bennett Department of History , , University of Tasmania Ormerod, D. and C. Wortham, eds, Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus: the A-Text, Perth, University of Western Australia Press, 1985; paperback, pp.lxxv, 159. With the possible exception of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, Doctor Faustus provides the knottiest problem of textud transmission in the drama of the English Rendssance. The earliest surviving text was published in 1604, more than a decade dter Marlowe's death, though there is some reason to beUeve that this is a reprint of a now lostfirstedition, possibly published as early as 1601. This 1604 version (known as the A-text) is a brisk, almost terse play of just over 1500 Unes, roughly hdf the length of a Shakespearean play, and less than a third of some of Shakespeare's 'monsters'tikeHamlet and Richard HI. It was replaced, dter severalreprintings,by a very different and much longer version of the play in 1616 (the B-text) which, according to the present editors, not only expands the play but dters its substance as well. The relationship between the two and the provenance of each pose puzzles and conundrums to gladden the hearts of textual scholars. Ever since the commencement of a systematic study of old play-texts in the nineteenth century, the textud problems sunounding this play have engaged the interests and sometimes the prejudices of scholars. Though many have attempted to base their theories and practices on purely objective grounds, aesthetic and criticd attitudes have dways played an important part in any particular editor's decision about which text is closer to Marlowe's final intentions. The trouble is, as Ormerod and Wortham acknowledge in this many ways admirable edition of the A-text that therelationshipbetween the two texts is by no means clear, and that each, in different ways, is clearly defective. The A-text is almost without doubt a so-cdled reported or reconstructed text Since such reconstructions in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were usuaUy performed for purposes of piraticd performance and publication, they are normdly treated with extreme suspicion. But, the editors point out this reported text is a much more respectable affair than some of the shocking Reviews 145 concoctions of the age - like thefirstquarto of Hamlet or the quarto of The Merry Wives of Windsor - thus making it likely that thetextwas reconstructed by its legitimate owners who would have had access, therefore, to a company of players who would have been able to remember their parts with a high degree of accuracy. Yet the A-text is perfunctory and it does bear evidence of contamination from other plays - a sure sign, according to editorid orthodoxy, of a suspect text. But - and these editors stress this point vigorously - editorid preference for the later and fdler B-text is redly based on essentially literary preferences. That text is longer, it contains more instances than the earlier text of Rendssance playhouse practices, and it has an at least rudimentary five-act structure. It is, in other words, more conventiond. By contrast the A-text concentrates more on the essentids of the Faust story. It is less concerned with exploiting its sensationd and spectacular possibilities. This, according to the present editors, is a sign of its authenticity, of Marlowe's sophisticated exploitation of the structural and theatricd devices of the old morality drama. But equdly, these fundamentdly primitive elements in thetext(no matter how sophisticated their use seems to be) might point either to the lack of expertise among thereconstructors,or to a radicd abbreviation of the play for performance during a provineid tour. Certdnly, even if the play was written as early as 1592, its brevity and apparent stylization w o d d have been somewhat unusud on the London stage. I have spent considerable space on these matters because it seems to m e...