“Shakespeares Workes, and such Prelaticall trash”: Milton’s Shakespeare from the Philadelphia First Folio to the Political Prose

Abstract

How are we to connect the way that Milton uses Charles I’s love of Shakespeare against him in Eikonoklastes (1649) with the evidence of Milton’s own close appreciation of Shakespeare in his copy of the First Folio, recently identified in the Free Library of Philadelphia? Is there any relationship between the linguistic and textual fascination with Shakespeare on display in the Philadelphia Folio and the polemical quotation of Shakespeare in the prose, or should we focus on the difference between them? This article makes the case that there is a relationship between Milton’s use of the First Folio and the political prose, but one that has less to do with content or with Milton’s attitudes toward Shakespeare per se than with critical methods of reading. This relationship exemplifies the effect of polemicization on literary and textual criticism, as on every aspect of British culture, during the Civil Wars of the 1640s.