Samson Agonistes

                              Author 

John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), written in blank verse.
Milton's poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self-determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day. Writing in English, Latin, Greek, and Italian, he achieved international renown within his lifetime, and his celebrated Areopagitica (1644)—written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship—is among history's most influential and impassioned defences of free speech and freedom of the press.

         Plot Overview of Samson Agonistes

It's a holiday for the Philistines when our poem opens, and this means that their Hebrew prisoner, Samson, gets a day off from the grueling labor he's usually forced to do. But he just can't relax. Instead, he obsesses over the various mistakes he's made in his life that have gotten him to this low point. Also, we learn that he's blind and that he feels he's betrayed his religion and his people.
Well, we're off to a good start!
In comes the Chorus, a group of his Hebrew friends. They try to be helpful, but they don't really have the lingo down and Samson seems to become more and more miserable. Then Manoa, Samson's father, shows up. He wants to negotiate with the Philistine authorities to secure Samson's release, but no dice. Samson feels that he deserves to be in prison. Hey, you can't stop a dad from trying—and off he goes to do just that.
Shortly after his dad departs, Samson's infamous Philistine ex-wife Dalila pays a visit. We learn that she's the reason Samson is in prison: she betrayed the secret that his amazing strength depends on his having a flowing, luscious locks. She told her people, they cut his hair, arrested him, blinded him... and here he is in prison. But she's here to apologize and explain.
Obviously, Samson is completely uninterested in hearing her excuses and says lots of insulting things to her. She leaves in a fury, with this parting shot: she's now a hero among her people.
Last but definitely not least is the Philistine giant Harapha, who says he's just come by to check out this famous Samson. He also says that he wishes Samson were in better physical condition so they could fight it out and see who's strongest. Samson is totally down, but Harapha won't fight a blind guy. They trash-talk for a while, and then Harapha leaves in a huff. Harumpha!
Just then, a messenger arrives with the order for Samson to come perform in a Philistine festival. Uh, no thanks, Samson says—and then thinks better of it, saying he has had this vague but powerful feeling that he's meant to go and perform some great deed. Off he trots, just missing his father, who's back with good news that he successfully bribed some Philistine leaders and can now take Samson home.
Uh-oh. We're starting to get a bad feeling about this—and we're right. Just as the Chorus is about to celebrate this good news, they hear a horrible shriek. Another messenger runs in and reports that Samson has killed both himself and the entire Philistine elite by toppling the roof of the theater.
The Chorus and Manoa alternate between being super sad over the death of Samson and super happy that their enemy has been defeated. In the end, they go off to look for Samson's body and Manoa promises he's going to build Samson an awesome tomb. And thus ends Samson.

                                 Themes 

RELIGION

Shock! Samson Agonistes is obsessed with religion. Okay, now that you've recovered from that mind-blowing announcement, let's check out exactly how this theme gets deployed: lots of talk about God; pretty much everyone spends their time talking about religion; and, oh yeah, it's based on a Biblical story. But religion isn't just a superficial spackling. Milton is asking some serious questions here: What's the right way to be religious? What's the right religion? How can religion or the divine help you understand what right and wrong are? We think it's proof of just how serious Samson Agonistes is about religion that it doesn't offer any easy answers to these big questions. Instead, it just puts them out there for you to decide

SUFFERING

Here's another no-brainer: opening with lines that describe our protagonist as both blind and imprisoned, it's pretty obviously that Samson Agonistes is about suffering. But just in case you need convincing, the poem spends most of its time listening to various characters describing suffering: the who, what, where, when, and, oh yeah, why. Each of the various visitors Samson talks with offers a different perspective on Samson's suffering and their own.

GUILT AND BLAME

No one wins the blame game. But, if there's one thing that seems to unite every character in Samson Agonistes, it's that they're all trying to blame someone else for the situation they're in. Even though Samson admits he's most at fault many times during the poem, he's also pretty good at pointing fingers at other people: Dalila, the Hebrew leaders... sometimes he even seems to be blaming God. There's obviously a lot of guilt and blame to go around in this story, and the bigger question isn't who's at fault, but why it even matters.

STRENGTH AND SKILL

It's a bird, it's a plane... it's Samson! Okay, you got us: he's not actually Superman, but from the way some of the characters describe Samson's previous mojo, he's not so far off. Saving his people, conquering enemies, fighting while totally outnumbered—Samson definitely was strong and skilled. Unsurprisingly then, a big preoccupation of Samson Agonistes is: what happened? The question isn't just literally how Samson lost his strength and wound up in prison, but also whether the fact that it did happen means Samson never was truly either of these things.

 

FATE AND FREE WILL

If we could only take one fact about tragedies to our desert island (don't ask), it would probably be—you can't escape fate. In Greek mythology, the concept of fate was personified by a trio of goddesses, and suggested that all people have a certain destiny that must be fulfilled. Essentially: no free will. Now, this whole fate/free will thing gets very (very) complicated for Christianity. Was Eve fated to eat that apple? If so, what does that say about God? Can we do anything to help our salvation, or are we just born saved or damned? For Samson Agonistes, the important thing is that Samson can't decide whether everything he does is fulfilling God's destiny for him (a kind of Christian version of fate) or whether he has total control over himself. 

MARRIAGE

Sadly for Samson, something that might have been one happy part of his life turned out to be the absolute worst. disaster. ever. (Fun fact: Milton was drawing on personal experience here. He was one of the first people to make a Biblical argument for divorce.) Both of Samson's marriages to Philistine women end with betrayal, raising questions not only about marital fidelity, but also about fidelity to one's nation or people. In fact, it's a kind of uncommon and interesting aspect of Milton's writings that he so often focuses not simply on the passions of romantic love and sex, a typical topic of literature, but equally on the complexities of marriage as a personal and social contract. In Samson Agonistes, marriage is as much a political act as a private act.