Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T14:21:28.853Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Confronting Religious Violence: Milton's Samson Agonistes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Feisal G. Mohamed
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Milton's Samson has long been a character about whom readers are irreconcilably divided. Current anxiety over terrorism has made it all the more inviting to see Milton's dramatic poem as a criticism of Samson's slaughter of the Philistines, a sentiment emphatically expressed in John Carey's recent claim that “September 11 has changed Samson Agonistes, because it has changed the readings we can derive from it while still celebrating it as an achievement of the human imagination.” This paper interrogates the association of Milton with present-day antipathy to religious violence and seeks to sophisticate the position of critics who now find terrorism an inescapable presence in the field of literary interpretation. The brand of reading most necessary in current discussion is one that avoids the reactionary temptation to cleanse literary texts of sympathy with religious violence and to view such violence as the province solely of the Other.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 120 , Issue 2 , March 2005 , pp. 327 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Achcar, Gilbert. The Clash of Barbarisms: September 11 and the Making of the New World Disorder. Trans. Drucker, Peter. New York: Monthly Rev., 2002. Trans. of Choc des barbaries.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Achinstein, Sharon. “Samson Agonistes and the Drama of Dissent.” Labriola and Lieb 133–58.Google Scholar
Ali, Tariq. The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads, and Modernity. New York: Verso, 2003.Google Scholar
Augustine of Hippo. De civitate Dei. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 48. Turnhout: Brepols, 1955.Google Scholar
The Bible. Authorized King James Vers. Introd. Robert Carroll and Stephen Prickett. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998.Google Scholar
Black Hawk Down. Dir. Ridley Scott. Columbia Tristar, 2002.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Field of Cultural Production; or, The Economic World Reversed.” Trans. Richard Nice. Poetics 12 (1983): 311–56.10.1016/0304-422X(83)90012-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bullinger, Heinrich. Sermonum decades quinque. London, 1587. STC 4076.Google Scholar
Burns, Norman T. “‘Then Stood Up Phinehas’: Milton's Antinomianism, and Samson's.” Labriola and Lieb 27–46.Google Scholar
Carey, John. Milton. Arco Lit. Critiques. New York: Arco, 1970.Google Scholar
Carey, John. “A Work in Praise of Terrorism?” Times Literary Supplement 6 Sept. 2002. 15–16.Google Scholar
Diodati, John. Pious and Learned Annotations upon the Holy Bible. 4th ed. London, 1664. Wing D1508.Google Scholar
Donne, John. Biathanatos. Ed. Ernest, W. Sullivan II. Toronto: Assoc. UP, 1984.Google Scholar
Dudziak, Mary L., ed. September 11 in History: A Watershed Moment? Durham: Duke UP, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eliot, Thomas Stearns. Milton. London: Cumberlege, 1947.Google Scholar
Euripides. The Bacchae. Trans. William Arrowsmith. Euripides V. The Complete Greek Tragedies. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1959. 141–222.Google Scholar
Euripides. Heracleidae. Trans. David Grene. Euripides I. The Complete Greek Tragedies. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1955. 109–55.Google Scholar
Euripides. Heracles. Trans. Philip Vellacott. Medea and Other Plays. Toronto: Penguin, 1963. 153–99.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley. How Milton Works. Cambridge: Belknap–Harvard UP, 2001.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley. “Postmodern Warfare: The Ignorance of Our Warrior Intellectuals.” Harper's Magazine July 2002. 33–40.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley. There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It's a Good Thing, Too. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994.Google Scholar
Fishbone, Alan, trans. Christos Paschon / Christus Patiens. Afterword by Joseph Wittreich. Milton Quarterly 36 (2002): 129–98.Google Scholar
Guttenplan, D. D. “Is Reading Milton Unsafe at Any Speed?” New York Times 28 Dec. 2002. 31 Dec. 2002 <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/28/arts/28TANK.html>..>Google Scholar
Herbert, George. “Sunday.” George Herbert and the Seventeenth-Century Religious Poets. Ed. Mario, A. Di-Cesare. New York: Norton, 1978. 32–33.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon, 1996.Google Scholar
Jameson, Fredric. “Religion and Ideology: A Political Reading of Paradise Lost.” Literature, Politics, and Theory: Papers from the Essex Conference, 1976.-84. Ed. Barker, Francis et al. New York: Methuen, 1986. 35–56.Google Scholar
Jimmy Carter. Dir. Adriana Bosch. The American Experience. PBS. WNED, Buffalo. Transcript. 11 June 2003 <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/pt.html>..>Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel. “Rambler 139.” Milton's Samson Agonistes: The Poem and Materials for Analysis. Ed. Ralph, E. Hone. San Francisco: Chandler, 1966. 97–103.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Amy. “Homeland Insecurities.” Dudziak 55–69.10.1215/9780822384939-004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelley, Mark R. “Milton's Euripidean Poetics of Lament.” Kelley and Wittreich 132–67.Google Scholar
Kelley, Mark R., and Joseph A. Wittreich, eds. Altering Eyes: New Perspectives on Samson Agonistes. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2002.Google Scholar
Krouse, F. Michael. Milton's Samson and the Christian Tradition. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1949.Google Scholar
Labriola, Albert C., and Lieb, Michael, eds. The Miltonic Samson. Milton Studies 33. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1996.Google Scholar
Lapide, Cornelius à. Commentarius in Sacram Scripturam. Ed. Sfortiae, X. R. Vol. 2. Naples: Nagar, 1854. 10 vols.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Henry. Militia Spiritualis; or, A Treatise of Angels. London, 1652. Wing L662.Google Scholar
Leibsohn, Seth. “Response to Walter Shapiro Op-ed.” 19 Mar. 2002. Americans for Victory over Terrorism . 28 Dec. 2003 <http://www.avot.org/stories/storyReader$58>..>Google Scholar
Lewalski, Barbara Kiefer. The Life of John Milton: A Critical Biography. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.Google Scholar
Lewalski, Barbara Kiefer. “‘To Try and Teach the Erring Soul’: Milton's Last Seven Years.” Parry and Raymond 175–90.Google Scholar
Lieb, Michael. “‘Our Living Dread’: The God of Samson Agonistes.” Labriola and Lieb 3–25.Google Scholar
Lieb, Michael. “Returning the Gorgon Medusa's Gaze: Terror and Annihilation in Milton.” Interrogating Milton:Google Scholar
The Author and His Readers. Ed. Lieb and Albert C. Labriola. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Lobe, Jim. “The War on Dissent Widens.” Foreign Policy Focus 15 Mar. 2002. 28 Dec. 2003 <http://www.fpif.org/pdf/gac/0203avot.pdf>..>Google Scholar
Loewenstein, David. Representing Revolution in Milton and His Contemporaries: Religion, Politics, and Polemics in Radical Puritanism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001.10.1017/CBO9780511483691CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mailer, Norman. Why Are We at War? New York: Random, 2003.Google Scholar
Martin, Jerry L., and Neal, Anne D. Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done about It. Feb. 2002. Amer. Council of Trustees and Alumni. 27 Dec. 2003 <http://www.goacta.org/publications/Reports/defciv.pdf>..>Google Scholar
Milton, John. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. Merritt, Y. Hughes. New York: Odyssey, 1957.Google Scholar
Milton, John. The Complete Prose Works of John Milton. Ed. Don, M. Wolfe et al. 8 vols. New Haven: Yale UP, 1953.-82.Google Scholar
Mueller, Janel. “The Figure and the Ground: Samson as a Hero of London Nonconformity, 1662.-1667.” Parry and Raymond 137–62.Google Scholar
Parry, Graham, and Raymond, Joad, eds. Milton and the Terms of Liberty. Studies in Renaissance Lit. 7. Cambridge: Brewer, 2002.Google Scholar
Poole, Matthew. Synopsis criticorum aliorumque S. Scripturae interpretum. London, 1669. Wing P2853.Google Scholar
Pound, Ezra. Make It New. London: Faber, 1934.Google Scholar
Radzinowicz, Mary Ann. Toward Samson Agonistes: The Growth of Milton's Mind. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1978.Google Scholar
Rudrum, Alan. “Discerning the Spirit in Samson Agonistes: The Dalila Episode.” “All in All”: Unity, Diversity, and the Miltonic Perspective. Ed. Charles, W. Durham and Kristin A. Pruitt. Selinsgrove: Susquehanna UP, 1999. 245–58.Google Scholar
Rudrum, Alan. “Milton Scholarship and the Agon over Samson Agonistes.” Huntington Library Quarterly 65 (2002): 465–88.Google Scholar
Rumrich, John P. “Samson and the Excluded Middle.” Kelley and Wittreich 307–32.Google Scholar
Rushdy, Ashraf H. A. The Empty Garden: The Subject of Late Milton. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1992.Google Scholar
Saving Jessica Lynch. Prod. Daniel Paulson and Bob Chmiel. NBC Studios, 2003.Google Scholar
Seneca. Hercules furens. Jasper Heywood and His Translation of Seneca's Troas, Thyestes and Hercules furens. Ed. H. de Vocht. 1913. Vaduz: Kraus Rpt., 1963. 196–293.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Walter. “Anti-anti-war Crowd Dreams Up a Disloyal Opposition.” USA Today 13 Mar. 2002. 27 Dec. 2003 <http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/shapiro/610.htm>..>Google Scholar
Shawcross, John T. The Uncertain World of Samson Agonistes. Studies in Renaissance Lit. 6. Cambridge: Brewer, 2001.Google Scholar
Shea, Christopher. “Was Samson a Terrorist?” Boston Globe 3 Nov. 2002. D5.Google Scholar
Sikes, George. The Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane Kt. [London,] 1662. Wing S3780.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999.10.2307/j.ctvjsf541CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steadman, John M. “‘Faithful Champion’: The Theological Basis of Milton's Hero of Faith.” Anglia: Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie 77 (1959): 13–28.Google Scholar
Trapp, John. A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Epistles and the Revelation. London, 1647. Wing T2040.Google Scholar
Urban, David V. Rev. of “Exiled from Light,” by Derek Wood. Milton Quarterly 37 (2003): 43–46.Google Scholar
Vane, Henry. A Pilgrimage into the Land of Promise, by the Light of the Vision of Jacobs Ladder and Faith. [London,] 1664. Wing V73.Google Scholar
Vane, Henry. The Retired Mans Meditations, or the Mysterie and Power of Godlines. London, 1655. Wing V75.Google Scholar
Vernant, Jean-Pierre. “Tensions and Ambiguities in Greek Tragedy.” Tragedy and Myth in Ancient Greece. By Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet. Trans. Janet Lloyd. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities, 1981. 6–27.Google Scholar
von Dreele, W. H. “Chirac Plays Samson.” National Review 7 Apr. 2003. 12.Google Scholar
Wittreich, Joseph Anthony. Interpreting Samson Agonistes. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Wittreich, Joseph Anthony. Shifting Contexts: Reinterpreting Samson Agonistes. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 2002.Google Scholar
Wittreich, Joseph Anthony. “Why Milton Matters.” Milton Studies 45 (2005): forthcoming.Google Scholar
Wood, Derek N. C. “Exiled from Light”: Divine Law, Morality, and Violence in Milton's Samson Agonistes. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Worden, Blair. “Milton, Samson Agonistes, and the Restoration.” Culture and Society in the Stuart Restoration. Ed. MacLean, Gerald. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. 111–36.Google Scholar
Young, Marilyn B. “Ground Zero: Enduring War.” Dudziak 10–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar