ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION THE TEXT OF 2 Henry VI is derived mainly from Fr. In QI, entered in S.R. by Thomas Millington on 12 March, 1594, and published in that year, the play was called The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of 'Yorke and Lancaster . .. As P. Alexander, A. Hartl and others have proved, this was not an earlier form of the play-a source, or an earlier version by Shakespeare-but a 'bad Quarto', a shortened memorial reconstruction of the piece as performed, maybe, in the provinces. Q2 (1600) followed Q1 closely. When in 1602 Millington assigned his rights in this play and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of 'York (the 'bad Quarto' of 3H6 printed in 1595 and 1600) to Thomas Pavier, he styled them 'The firste and Second parte of Henry the VIt'. Q3 was printed in 1619 for Thomas Pavier by William laggard along with this True Tragedy of . .. 'York, the two being called The Whole Contention betweene the two Famous Houses, Lancaster and 'Yorke. The 1623 F text was probably taken from MSS. which survived from one of the early companies, Pembroke's or Strange's, and the stage directions may be the author's own, with additions made in the theatre. 2
The play was probably composed by the end of 1591, for it was written before 3 Henry VI, which was misquoted satirically by Greene in August, 1592. It shows some advance on the first part in style, but many scholars are still unwilling to believe that Shakespeare wrote most of the play, though they allow that he may have revised it.]. D. Wilson (Camb xxv-liii) sees the hands of Greene and Nashe in it, and believes that the confusions between people's names and in the charges brought against Gloucester, were due to divided authorship, and also to the possibility that Shakespeare, in revising, did not trouble about historical accuracy-maybe he did not even read the
relevant passages in Holinshed, Hall or Grafton-but concerned himself with 'dramatic force and theatrical efficiency'. It is at least as likely that Shakespeare wrote the whole play, that as in the other early plays his touch was uncertain, that he tried his hand at many tones and styles, imitating other men too, that he read the chronicles, but that he wrote rapidly, perhaps in snatches, and that the errors of history and of taste are his, due to hurry, inexperience, and inadequate revision of his own work. He 'never blotted out line ... would he had blotted a thousand', as Ben Jonson commented. The curious reader may amuse himself by tracing Shakespeare's mistakes with reference to the texts given below; he may prefer to seek evidence of Shakespeare's skill in organizing the heterogeneous matter he drew on.
