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Samson Agonistes and the “Tragedy” of the Apocalypse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Barbara K. Lewalski
Barbara K. Lewalski*
Affiliation:
Brown University Providence, R. I.
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Abstract

Milton's references in the preface to Samson Agonistes and in The Reason of Church Government to the Book of Revelation as tragedy have great significance for his drama. His cited authority, David Pareus, and several other Protestant commentators identified the Book of Revelation as tragedy on the basis of form (the alternation of dramatic episodes and Choruses) and subject—the spiritual combat of the Elect with Antichrist and their torment and suffering at his hands throughout all time, reversed only at the end of history when they share Christ's Apocalyptic victory over him. Protestant exegates often linked the Samson story typologically with the Book of Revelation, presenting Samson as type of the suffering Elect and the exercise of Samson's vocation as Judge (deliverer of God's people and executor of the wrath of God upon His enemies) as type of the Elect judging the world with Christ at the last day. This context assists the interpretation of Milton's Samson, bringing into focus its treatment of Samson's judgeship. The Samson Apocalypse link also brings a new perspective to certain moot questions: the date of the play, the interpretation of Samson's character, the presence of contemporary political reference, the nature of the drama's tragic effect.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 85 , Issue 5 , October 1970 , pp. 1050 - 1062
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1970

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References

Note 1 in page 1050 Complete Prose Works of John Milton, ed. Don M. Wolfe (New Haven, Conn., 1953), i, 815.

Note 2 in page 1050 Ernest Sirluck, in “Milton's Idle Right Hand,” JEGP, 60 (1961), 773–81, provides a good critique of the arguments of W. R. Parker and Allan H. Gilbert for an early date (1640's to 1650's). In “The Chronology of Milton's Major Poems,” PMLA, 76 (1961), 345–58, John Shawcross also argues for an early date on grounds of prosody, but the argument has not gained wide acceptance. As yet there seem to be no compelling reasons to abandon the tradition that Samson was the last of Milton's poems, probably written between 1669–71.

Note 3 in page 1050 Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (New York, 1967). All subsequent references to Milton's poetry are to this edition.

Note 4 in page 1050 W. R. Parker, “On Milton's Early Literary Program,” MP, 33 (1935–36), 49–53.

Note 5 in page 1050 See Barbara K. Lewalski, Milton's Brief Epic: The Genre, Meaning, and Art of Paradise Regained (Providence, R. I., and London, 1966).

Note 6 in page 1050 The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (New York, 1967), p. 39.

Note 7 in page 1050 Poetics, xiii.4–8, trans. S. H. Butcher, in Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, 4th ed. (New York, 1951), pp. 47–48.

Note 8 in page 1051 Milton's Debt lo Greek Tragedy in Samson Agonistes, (Baltimore, Md., 1937).

Note 9 in page 1051 William G. Madsen, From Shadowy Types lo Truth (New Haven, 1968), pp. 181–202.

Note 10 in page 1051 “Tragic Effect in Samson Agonistes,” repr. from UTQ, 28 (1958–59), in Arthur Barker, Milton: Modern Essays in Criticism (New York, 1965), 464–66.

Note 11 in page 1051 A Commentary upon the Divine Revelation of the A postle and Evangelist John, trans. Elias Arnold (Amsterdam, 1644), p. 20.

Note 12 in page 1051 Pareus, p. 20. Hezekiah Holland, An Exposition . . . Upon the Revelation of Saint John (London, 1650), p. 146, also discusses the dramatic form of the Apocalypse, noting the practice here “as in a comedy or tragedy, to bring in harpers or musick to delight the spectatours.”

Note 13 in page 1051 Pareus, pp. 21–22, 134; 26, 105.

Note 14 in page 1051 A typical statement is that of Henry Bullinger, A Hundred Sermons upon the Apocalypse (London, 1573), sig. Aiiv : “the Church is called the whole Societie of people that acknowledge the Gospell of Christe and beleve in him.”

Note 15 in page 1052 The Apocalypse, or Revelation of S. John, trans. T. Barbar (Cambridge, Eng., 1596), p. 247.

Note 16 in page 1052 Pareus, p. 84.

Note 17 in page 1052 Bullinger, sig. Aiiiv .

Note 18 in page 1052 The Bible (Geneva-Tomson version, with annotations on Revelation by F. Junius) (London, 1599), fol. 114.

Note 19 in page 1052 “A Revelation of the Apocalypse,” Works (London, 1644), pp. 194, A2“, 234, 332.

Note 20 in page 1052 Junius, p. 120.

Note 21 in page 1052 Pareus, pp. 16, 17, 26, 305.

Note 22 in page 1052 Pareus, p. 132.

Note 23 in page 1053 Engraving by William Faithorne, title page of H. M., The Emblème of England's Distractions (London, 1658). Reproduced in S. R. Gardiner, Oliver Cromwell (New York, 1899).

Note 24 in page 1053 Complete Prose Works, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (New York, 1962), iii, 597.

Note 25 in page 1053 Michael Fixler, Milton and the Kingdoms of God (Evanston, 111., 1964), pp. 13–45; Augustine, The City of God, XX, trans. Marcus Dods (New York, 1950), pp. 710–62.

Note 26 in page 1053 Fixler, p. 46 et passim.

Note 27 in page 1053 The Works of John Milton (Columbia ed.), ed. F. A. Patterson, 18 vols. (New York, 1932–40), xvi, 97, 339–41.

Note 28 in page 1054 Boccaccio, The Fates of Illustrious Men [De casibus virorum illustrium], trans. Louis B. Hall (New York, 1965), pp. 38–41; Chaucer, The Monk's Tale, 11. 25–104, Poetical Works, ed. W. W. Skeat (London, 1957).

Note 29 in page 1054 Joost Van den Vondel, Samson, of Heilege Wraeck, trans. Watson Kirkconnell, That Invincible Samson (Toronto, 1964), p. 137.

Note 30 in page 1054 In Kirkconnell, p. 59.

Note 31 in page 1054 Krouse, Milton's Samson and the Christian Tradition (Princeton, 1949); Scott-Craig, “Concerning Milton's Samson,” Renaissance News, 5 (1952), 45–53; Madsen, From Shadowy Types to Truth, pp. 181–202.

Note 32 in page 1055 This phenomenon has been noted by several scholars. Murray Roston coined for it the descriptive term “post-figuration” (Biblical Dramain England, Evanston, 111., 1968, pp. 69–78), and J. A. Galdon saw it as indicating the breakdown of the typological mode (“Typology and Seventeenth Century Literature,” unpubl. diss. Columbia, 1965, p. 234.

Note 33 in page 1055 The study of F. S. Plotkin, “Sighs from Sion: A Study of Radical Puritan Eschatology in England, 1640–1660” (unpubl. diss. Columbia, 1966), collects some of the evidence for this, but gives the unwarranted impression that typology applied to the political sphere is the particular province of Millenarian radicals: actually it is a Protestant commonplace.

Note 34 in page 1055 Galdon (pp. 62–65) includes this factor in his definition of typology—that the antitype must recapitulate and fulfill the type, forma perfectior.

Note 35 in page 1055 Calvin, A Commentarie upon S. Paules Epistles to the Corinthians, trans. Thomas Tymme (London, 1577), foil. 112–17; Institutes of the Christian Religion, ii.x.l-xi.2; iv.xvi.18–25, ed. John T. McNeill, “The Library of Christian Classics, Vols, xx-xxi” (Philadelphia, 1967), pp. 428–51; 1297–1300; Geneva Bible, Hebrews xi.

Note 36 in page 1055 Milton and This Pendant World (Austin, Texas, 1958), pp. 210–16.

Note 37 in page 1055 Contemplations upon the Principall Passages of the Holy Storie (London, 1612), iii, 274–79.

Note 38 in page 1056 Most Fruitfull and Learned Commentaries [upon the Book of Judges] (London, 1564), foil. 235v -36v .

Note 39 in page 1056 A Commentary upon the Whole Book of Judges (London, 1615), pp. 784, 789.

Note 40 in page 1056 Whiting, pp. 201–22.

Note 41 in page 1056 John H. Steadman, “ ‘Faithful Champion’: The Theological Basis of Milton's Hero of Faith,” reprinted from Anglia, 77 (1959), 12–28, in Barker, Modern Essays in Criticism, p. 467. See Milton's Works (Columbia ed.), xv, 384–85.

Note 42 in page 1056 Steadman, “ 'Faithful Champion,' ” p. 468; “The Tragic Glass: Milton, Minturno,and the Condition Humaine,” in Th 'Upright Heart and Pure, ed. Amadeus P. Flore (Pittsburgh, Pa., 1967), pp. 104–14.

Note 43 in page 1056 Fisch, Jerusalem and Albion (London, 1964), pp. 140–47; Roston, Biblical Drama in England, pp. 152–73.

Note 44 in page 1056 F'or examples, see Plotkin, “Sighsfrom Sion.”

Note 45 in page 1057 Rogers, sig. [B 4].

Note 46 in page 1057 London, 1597, pp. 96, 103v

Note 47 in page 1057 The Historie of Samson (London, 1632), p. 348.

Note 48 in page 1057 E.g., Rogers, p. 786; Hall, iii, 278–79; Peter Martyr, foil. 235v -36.

Note 49 in page 1057 Peter Martyr, fol. 288v .

Note 50 in page 1057 Israel and England Paralleled (London, 1648), n.p.

Note 51 in page 1057 Quarles, p. 343.

Note 52 in page 1057 Pious and Learned A nnolations upon the Holy Bible, 2nd ed. (London, 1648), p. 154.

Note 53 in page 1057 Christ Revealed: Or, The Old Testament Types Explained (London, 1635), p. 61.

Note 54 in page 1057 Described in Kirkconnell, That Invincible Samson, p. 161.

Note 55 in page 1057 Complete Prose Works, ed. Wolfe (1966), iv, 402.

Note 56 in page 1057 Columbia ed., xvi, 363.

Note 57 in page 1060 A. S. P. Woodhouse, “Samson Agonistes and Milton's Experience,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 3rd Series, 43 (1949), 157–75; Galdon, “Typology and Seventeenth Century Literature,” p. 151.

Note 58 in page 1060 Madsen, From Shadowy Types to Truth, pp. 181–202; Samuel, Paper for English 6, MLA annual meeting, 28 Dec. 1965.

Note 59 in page 1061 Woodhouse, “Samson Agonistes and Milton's Experience,” pp. 157–75; W. R. Parker, “The Date of Samson Agonistes,” PQ, 28 (1949), 145–66.

Note 60 in page 1061 Columbia ed., vi, 149.

Note 61 in page 1061 “Tragic Effect in Samson Agonistes,” pp. 464–65.