Groundbreaking Discovery: John Milton's Copy of Shakespeare

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2019

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In September, the world of literary scholarship got some big news. It was discovered that a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio, housed in the Free Library of Philadelphia, once belonged to John Milton, author of Paradise Lost. The First Folio contains what experts now widely believe to be Milton’s notes on Shakespeare, in his own handwriting. Suddenly, we can read what one of the greatest English language poets was thinking as he engaged with Shakespeare’s plays. The connection was made by Cambridge University’s Jason Scott-Warren. Scott-Warren was reading an essay by Penn State’s Claire M.L. Bourne about this copy of the First Folio when the handwriting in the notes started to look familiar. Shortly afterward, Bourne got a direct message from Scott-Warren on Twitter: “Can I run something by you?” We talk to Bourne and Scott-Warren about what this discovery means, how technology (including Twitter) has changed their work, and what’s next. Dr. Claire M. L. Bourne is an assistant professor of English at Penn State University. Dr. Jason Scott-Warren is a College Lecturer and Director of Studies in English at Cambridge University in England. They were interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published October 1, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “We Shall Jointly Labor,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at VoiceTrax West in Studio City, California; Craig Johnson at WPSU public radio in State College, Pennsylvania; and K. J. Thorarinsson at KJ’s Sound Studio in Cambridge, England.

Transcript

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0:00.0	21st century thinking and 21st century tools have solved a 17th century mystery.
0:06.0	And English literature may never look the same again.
0:15.0	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:21.6	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers director.
0:24.6	About a week ago, as we record this, the world of literary scholarship received some astonishing news.
0:31.6	A copy of Shakespeare's first folio housed at the Free Library in Philadelphia, once belonged to John
0:40.3	Milton, author of Paradise Lost, and the writer many consider the second greatest poet in the English
0:47.3	language. And not only that, this first folio contained Milton's own notes on Shakespeare in his own handwriting,
0:57.0	something that had never been realized until now.
1:02.0	This remarkable discovery was made possible by a combination of hard work, serendipity, and most importantly,
1:10.0	the real-time connections made possible by 21st
1:13.5	century technology. On September 9th, Professor Jason Scott Warren of Cambridge University
1:19.3	sent a direct message on Twitter to Professor Claire M. L. Bourne at Penn State. Professor
1:25.9	Bourne had noticed notes in the margins of this first
1:28.9	folio 11 years ago when she was a grad student and she'd recently written about them. After
1:35.0	they talked, Professor Scott Warren wrote a blog post about what he thought he'd found. It included
1:42.0	pictures of the first folio that Professor Bourne had taken over the years.
1:46.7	Then he shared it on Twitter, hoping he could crowdsource a fact check of the discovery.
1:53.7	It worked. Scholars from around the world weighed in, and six days later, the news was out,
2:00.0	this book is, most likely likely John Milton's copy of Shakespeare.
2:05.6	For everything that's modern about this discovery, there's also something very old-fashioned.
2:11.6	It reminds us that there are amazing early books like this one that are still out there waiting to be found.
	...

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