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Coping with Hebraic Legalism: The Chorus in Samson Agonistes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Lynn Veach Sadler
Lynn Veach Sadler
Affiliation:
Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa 50311
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Extract

The Chorus of Milton's Samson Agonistes is highly platitudinous because it relies on Old Testament traditional wisdom to account for Samson's experience. It is groping within that kind of wisdom to understand the significance of what is happening to Samson, while his experience cannot be made explicable on the basis of Old Testament legalism. Trying to cope with the Chorus, critics often speak of the “different levels of awareness” in the poem and tend to press a division between Samson and his Chorus, too frequently insisting that the separation obtained is even greater at the end of the work. Professor Summers, for example, ascribes this tension between the protagonist and the Hebraic Chorus to the disparity between heroic and non-heroic experience: “…the Chorus is often wrong in typically unheroic ways, and … only as a result of the action does it acquire ‘true experience’ and understanding. Those Danites, friends and contemporaries of Samson, represent the ‘conventional wisdom’ of the drama; but the premise of the poem is that conventional wisdom is inadequate for tragic experience. If it were otherwise, there would be no function for the tragedy; the community would already have been saved …” The Chorus (with Manoa) is impercipient; but the fact that it follows after Samson, noting his changes and his actions and often repeating his attitudes, attests to a unity between Samson and the Chorus which Professor Summers' otherwise excellent treatment misses. Christian heroism does not, as he seems to suggest, depend upon separation, but upon communion with others, even as a true relationship with God, for Milton, removes the obscurities from one's relationships with other men. Milton plays off Samson's former selfheroism — which does separate him from his people — against the true heroism of the ending; responsiveness to the latter pulls the Chorus and Samson together.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 66 , Issue 3 , July 1973 , pp. 353 - 368
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1973

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References

1 E.g., Landy, Marcia, Character Portrayal in Samson Agonistes, TSLL VII (1965–66), 242Google Scholar; Wilkenfeld, Roger B., Act and Emblem: The Conclusion of Samson Agonistes, ELH XXXII (1965), 160–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 The Movements of the Drama, in The Lyric and Dramatic Milton, Selected Papers from the English Institute, ed. Summers, (N.Y. and Lon.: Columbia University Press, 1965), 162Google Scholar.

3 Not a “Christian,” Samson does not, for Milton, achieve “Christian liberty.” At the same time, however, his story is located in Judges between the Law and the Prophets; and Milton suggests that his experience (especially his “violations” of the Law) responsively must mirror more than the legalism of the Books of the Law. I call the liberty he achieves from the Law and his fulfillment, thereby, of the Law as Michael describes it in Paradise Lost, “prophetic” liberty.

4 Tragic Effect in Samson Agonistes, UTQ XXVIII (1958–59), 208ffGoogle Scholar.

5 Cf. Huntley, John, A Revaluation of the Chorus' Role in Milton's Samson Agonistes, MP LXIV (1966), 132–45Google Scholar, who suggests that the Chorus and Samson exchange roles from the beginning of the play to the departure of Manoa. As Samson begins to rise in spiritual estate, the Chorus declines. The first 700 lines are controlled by a chiastic transformation.

6 Two other critics have recently shown interest in the Law as it relates to Samson's role of judge: Lewalski, Barbara K., Samson Agonistes and the “Tragedy” of the Apocalypse, PMLA LXXXV (1970), 1050–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Anthony, Low, “No Power but of God”: Vengeance and Justice in Samson Agonistes, HLQ XXXIV (1971), 219–32Google Scholar.

7 P. 139.

8 The Rhyme in Samson Agonistes, TSLL IV (1962–63), 180Google Scholar.

9 References for the poetry are to The Student's Milton, ed. Patterson, Frank Allen (N.Y.: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1957)Google Scholar.

10 Michael tells Adam (Paradise Lost, XII. 82–101) that subjection to tyranny is not punishment only, but God's merciful way of pointing out to the individual his obscuration of inner liberty and so making him repent.

11 Cf. Haskin, Dayton, S.J., Divorce as a Path to Union with God in Samson Agonistes, ELH XXXVIII (1971), 358–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 P. 166.

13 Huntxey points out that the Chorus is blaming God for making woman as she is and thus parallels Samson's error in blaming his sin on wisdom not equal to his strength.

14 In addition to my Typological Imagery in Samson Agonistes: Noon and the Dragon, ELH XXXVII (1970), 195–210Google Scholar, other critics have recently shown interest in the application of Revelation to Samson Agonistes: Lewalski; and Hawkins, Sherman H., Samson's Catharsis, Milton Studies, II (1970), 211–30Google Scholar.

15 See Huntley, 143: “The Chorus' initial reaction to the messenger's speech is totally wrong in a typically Manoan sense.” It is also wrong in a typically Greek sense.

16 Martz, Louis, in Chorus and Character in Samson Agonistes, Milton Studies, I (1969), 115–34Google Scholar, believes that the “conventional close” belies achievement of understanding by the Chorus or Manoa.