Online Literary Criticism Collection

Links below don’t belong? CONTACT US!

Return to: Literary Criticism Collection Home | ipl Home

Sites about Samson Agonistes

by John Milton

Critical sites about Samson Agonistes

“In this dark world and wide”: Samson Agonistes and the Meaning of Christian Heroism

http://chass.utoronto.ca/emls/05-2/bartsams.htm

“In this essay, I argue that Samson Agonistes is an integral part of Milton’s ultimatedefinition of Christian heroism, the second of a trilogy of works that begins literally atthe pinnacle of human achievement with the Nazarene of Paradise Regained, descendsfrom that unattainable height to the still numenous but theologically problematic OldTestament Nazarite, and finds its most satisfying resolution in the everyman of Adamand Eve. Emanating from the poet’s misgivings over the failure of the Good OldCause and the concomitant taunt that his blindness was punishment ‘for thetransgressions of [his] pen’, Samson Agonistes thus constitutes Milton’s initialexamination of the mechanisms of self-seduction and self-entrapping sophistry that’with words cloth’d in reason’s garb’ will lead Samson to marry Dalila, Eve to reachforth her rash hand in evil hour, and Adam to resolve with her to die.”

Contains: Content Analysis,

Author: Carol Barton

From: Early Modern Literary Studies 5.2 (September, 1999): 3.1-27

Keywords:

 

Sorry! Our collection does not contain any other (non-critical) sites about Samson Agonistes!

Do you know of any that you can recommend?

Last Updated Apr 29, 2013