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Afterword

Experience in Crisis: Milton’s Samson Agonistes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2021

Anita Gilman Sherman
Affiliation:
American University, Washington DC
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Summary

The afterword considers the crisis of experience in Milton’s Samson Agonistes. Samson’s uncertainties about God’s plans and his difficulties interpreting his own heart capture the plight of the godly individual in a world with a hidden God (a deus absconditus). His desire for freedom and his will to instigate political action in the absence of divine guidance capture the modern condition inaugurated by the nominalist sense of God’s distance and inscrutable power. Baffled by his own inner promptings and unable to tolerate this opacity, Samson feels compelled to experiment and hazard his strength against his enemies. Samson’s skeptical doubt results in revenge and apocalyptic violence. The sublime ending – its atmosphere of dread and horror subdued by twisting rhetorical summations – captures the dialectic of skepticism and the sublime. The illegibility of private experience – with its explosive possibilities – provides a fitting conclusion to a book about skeptical doubt in early modern English literature.

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Chapter
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Skepticism in Early Modern English Literature
The Problems and Pleasures of Doubt
, pp. 225 - 234
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Afterword
  • Anita Gilman Sherman, American University, Washington DC
  • Book: Skepticism in Early Modern English Literature
  • Online publication: 16 April 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108903813.007
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  • Afterword
  • Anita Gilman Sherman, American University, Washington DC
  • Book: Skepticism in Early Modern English Literature
  • Online publication: 16 April 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108903813.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Afterword
  • Anita Gilman Sherman, American University, Washington DC
  • Book: Skepticism in Early Modern English Literature
  • Online publication: 16 April 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108903813.007
Available formats
×