Reading Milton reading Shakespeare politically: what the identification of Milton’s First Folio does and does not tell us

Abstract

ABSTRACT The question of how Milton read Shakespeare has been put in a new light by the astonishing identification in 2019 of Milton’s copy of the Shakespeare First Folio in the Free Library of Philadelphia. The Philadelphia First Folio contains over 600 instances of lines and passages that have been scored or bracketed and over 120 instances of textual emendation, convincingly ascribed to Milton’s hand, most probably between the late 1620s and the early 1640s. This essay considers how much the markings in the Folio can tell us, focusing on the method of textual collation on display, which is cause for reflection on how Shakespeare was viewed in learned circles in early Stuart England. It also considers what the Folio is not able to tell us about how Milton engaged with Shakespearean drama politically, both in his prose and the poems, including Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.