1823: A Year in the Afterlife of Shakespeare and Milton

Abstract In 1823, the first edition of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the manuscript of John Milton’s theological work De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine) were both discovered after having been lost to history for centuries. These literary discoveries were subsequently published in 1825, challenging the established perspectives of them: the one as the one as the infallible magician of the stage, and the other as the juggernaut Christian poet. These two documents reshaped how scholars thought about them and their legacies. Shakespeare became a man at work, trafficking in a messy theater and printing culture. Milton became a theological outlaw, increasingly resembling to some his epic’s grand antagonist.