It is taken for granted in this study that we are dealing with the prose-verse division as it is found in the latest and most authoritative editions of Shakespeare's plays, rather than with the state of the text at some earlier stage in the composition of any or all of the plays. If it were possible to produce an earlier version of a play which would show (as does the Italianate version of Jonson's Every Man in his Humour) verse scenes later reworked in prose, or vice versa, one might discover invaluable information concerning Shakespeare's dramaturgic technique. But, unfortunately, no such information exists. It is tempting to regard the hastily-contrived prose scenes in Timon of Athens as scenes only sketched out in prose, but there is no evidence. If we assume that Shakespeare's plays as we have them represent the most nearly complete state of those plays which we can hope to have, we must not regard them as working manuscripts, and we must refrain from juggling with the text to produce attractive but unverifiable “earlier stages” of composition.

There would be no cause to advance such strictures if experiments of this sort had not already been made. Among them, the most complete and perhaps most unreliable is that of J. Dover Wilson, who has applied himself to the Folio text of As You Like It with truly astonishing results. He states that an earlier version of As You Like It, in verse, underlies our text: “History of a kind lies behind the transmitted text, since it is evident that some of the scenes now in prose had once been in blank verse. The textual editor owes the discovery of this fact to Dr. A. W. Pollard, who when making a study of As You Like It some years ago, came to the conclusion that the prose-lines with which 5.2 opens had originally been verse …”

These are the lines:

Orlando. Is't possible that on so little acquaintance you should like her? that but seeing you should love her? and loving woo? and wooing, she should grant? And will you persever to enjoy her?