Lower than bondslave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves.
In Samson Agonistes, Milton takes up the story of the Biblical character, Samson. And he does what he does best here, which is take a familiar story and give it real emotional weight again. In Samson, Milton has a fine tragic subject and he, as usual, zeroes in on exactly the right moment to dramatize. We find Samson here a prisoner of the Philistines, blinded and put to work as a slave. As he muses over his fall from grace, he is visited by a chorus of Israelites, his father Manoa, the treacherous Dalila and a non-Biblical character, the Philistine general Harapha and, finally, a soldier sent to escort him to the arena where he will soon die. Through these dialogues, Milton explores a theme that has fascinated him for a lot of his best work: greatness brought low through human weakness, through temptations of the flesh. This is a closet drama, so it’s not in the format of Paradise Lost or Paradise Regained, but thematically it can fit right between them. Samson is both a descendent of Adam, complete with all the flaws and weaknesses of that character, and also a prophetic symbol of Christ, the subject of Paradise Regained. And, like those two, this work is about a character facing temptation; like Adam & Eve, and unlike Christ, Samson falls. Milton gets at thorny issues about failure, weakness, regrets, redemption; you know, some of the weightiest themes of literature. This one, while comparatively very short, can stand next to Paradise Lost in my opinion as a work of true genius, in terms of taking compelling and tragic characters through a good story and also exploring weighty and profound issues in a resonant and powerful way. This one’s a must-read, a tragic story of faltering humanity and a thoughtful exploration of the same. 4 stars.
tl;dr – Milton’s second great work after Paradise Lost, this story of the Biblical Samson is emotionally powerful and philosophically engaging; Milton doing what he does best. 4 stars.