Where Samson Does One Last Trick

Samson Agonistes by John Milton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I rather enjoy Milton, and Samson Agonistes is another work of his that I find interesting and engaging to read just for no reason at all. I am largely a genre fiction reader--fantasy, SF, mystery, pulp--and I'm not terribly patient with dry old poetry, but Milton, for some reason, is a pretty good fit. I'm trying to figure out why.

It's not like he's totally straightforward in his writing. There are so many obscure references and allusions that most of us could get pretty lost. But perhaps I'm fortunate in that I have enough of them in common with him (churchy childhood and all) that I get a lot of it, and the stuff I miss doesn't matter too much in terms of comprehension. Or enjoyment.

But these aren't stories that are hard to follow. IMO, the biggest hindrance to enjoyment of older literature is usually comprehension, and these are, of course, retellings of famous stories; that familiarity is a huge aid to comprehension. Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained are largely fictionalized, with a lot of added material, but the main contours of the story in Genesis are largely intact. This story, basically the last day in the life of Samson, the strongman from the Bible, hews a little closer to the original story, being much shorter, with fewer additional scenes or characters. And I think it works.

If you recall, Samson was an Israelite hero, defeating the Philistines in battle with his great strength. That was a gift from god, and it depended on him never cutting his hair. Delilah, his Philistine wife, eventually coaxed the secret out of him. She cut his hair, taking his strength away, and he was captured and blinded and made a slave. This poem (a Greek-style tragic play, actually) tells about his last day, when his father came to try to ransom him (invented detail), but he got dragged to the temple to perform feats of strength, which had largely returned to him. Then, when he gets the chance, he pushes the pillars down in the temple, burying huge numbers of Philistines and dying in the process.

Now, Milton likes to control women waaaay too much for me, spending a lot of time blaming them (and the men who don't control them) for being kicked out of Eden and for Samson being captured. But allowing for his Puritan attitudes a little bit, the story is generally entertaining and thought-provoking. This poem is just under 1800 lines, making it a little long for a single sitting, probably, but not too long to read in bits over several days. It's not meant to be performed like a regular play, but I like imagining how it could be realized as an animation or radio drama or some other thing...

Anyway, yeah, I liked it. Recommended for people who sometimes read epic poetry or adjacent literature.

View all my reviews