Somehow this story was both so exciting that it literally made the hair on my neck stand up when I heard it, and also the most unimportant thing I’ve seen on Twitter since… ok since the meme 3 posts above it, Twitter is basically all garbage.

Conveniently, this story also has the property that if you care at all about it, you already know all about it, so this post is even more irrelevant than the Twitter meme two posts above that other one. BUT I DON’T CARE THIS IS AMAZING:

Claire Bourne recently published an article on marginalia in a particular First Folio copy of Shakespeare’s plays, held in the Free Library of Philadelphia since 1944. The notes drew her attention by being especially sensitive to the nuances of Shakespeare’s language, extending to the point of proposing emendations to words, and more poetic reorderings of key phrases.

One reader, looking at the photos in her article, noticed a similarity of the author’s handwriting to that of one John Milton. I’m sorry, I stuttered:

JOHN FUCKING MILTON.

Like I said, if you found that reveal at all exciting, you already knew. Sorry everyone else. There’s definitely further research to be done to confirm that this handwriting is actually (or very likely) Milton’s, but so far no serious objections to the theory have been raised.

The number of Ph.D. theses, books, articles, everythings that are about to be written about this text boggles the mind. There’s probably at least 50 years of work in understanding how Milton’s reading of Shakespeare affects our understanding of both Milton’s work, and Shakespeare’s. (Or there would be 50 years of work if the U.S. higher education system wasn’t going to collapse before then… but that’s a story for another time. )

For now – Milton! Milton’s notes on Shakespeare! Milton’s revisions to Shakespeare! I can’t wait to read more.

Alternate headlines:

• “The kind of news we needed 350 years ago”
• Britain’s Got Talent – 1630 Edition
• … ok this bit didn’t go as far as I thought it would sue me