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.

摘要

2019 年，费城免费图书馆对弥尔顿的莎士比亚第一对开本的副本进行了惊人的鉴定，使弥尔顿如何阅读莎士比亚的问题有了新的认识。费城第一对开本包含超过 600 条被记分或加括号的行和段落实例，以及超过 120 条文本修正实例，令人信服地归因于弥尔顿之手，最有可能在 1620 年代末至 1640 年代初之间。这篇文章考虑了对开本中的标记可以告诉我们多少，重点是展示文本整理的方法，这是反思早期斯图亚特英格兰学术界如何看待莎士比亚的原因。它还考虑了对开本无法告诉我们弥尔顿如何在政治上参与莎士比亚戏剧的内容，包括散文和诗歌，包括失乐园和重获天堂。