Plan of the lecture english literature of the XVII century

 
 
 

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KHILOLA RAKHIMOVA, senior teacher, URSU 
15 
ACTUAL MATTERS OF THE TIME IN THE WORK ''SAMSON-AGONISTES'' 
 
Like 
Paradise Regained
, 
Samson Agonistes 
focuses on the inner workings of the 
mind of the protagonist. This emphasis flees in the face of the biblical characterization 
of Samson in the Book of Judges, which celebrates his physical strength. Milton’s 
dramatic poem, however, begins the story of Samson after his downfall—after he has 
yielded his God-entrusted secret to Dalila (Delilah), suffered blindness, and become a 
captive of the Philistines. Tormented by anguish over his captivity, Samson is 
depressed by the realization that he, the prospective liberator of the Israelites, is now a 
prisoner, blind and powerless in the hands of his enemies. Samson vacillates from one 
extreme to another emotionally and psychologically. He becomes depressed, wallows 
in self-pity, and contemplates suicide. He becomes outraged at himself for having 
disclosed the secret of his strength. He questions his own nature, whether it was flawed 
with excessive strength and too little wisdom so that he was destined at birth to suffer 
eventual downfall. When Dalila visits him during his captivity and offers to minister 
to him, however, Samson becomes irascible, rejecting her with a harsh diatribe. In 
doing so, he dramatizes, unwittingly, the measure of his progress toward regeneration. 
Having succumbed to her previously, he has learned from past experience that Dalila 
is treacherous. From that point onward in 
Samson Agonistes
, Samson is progressively 
aroused from depression. He acknowledges that pride in his inordinate strength was a 
major factor in his downfall and that his previous sense of invincibility rendered him 
unwary of temptation, even to the extent that he became vulnerable to a woman whose 
guile charmed him. By the end of the poem, Samson, through expiation and 
regeneration, has regained a state of spiritual readiness in order to serve again as God’s 
champion. The destruction of the Philistines at the temple of Dagon results in more 
deaths than the sum of all previous casualties inflected by Samson. Ironically, when he 
least expected it, Samson was again chosen to be God’s scourge against the Philistines. 
Despite Samson’s physical feats, Milton depicts him as more heroic during his state of 
regeneration. Having lapsed into sinfulness when he violated God’s command not to 
disclose the secret of his strength, Samson suffers physically when he is blinded. He 
also suffers psychologically because he is enslaved by his enemies. The focus of 
Milton’s dramatic poem is ultimately on Samson’s regenerative process, an inner 
struggle beset by torment, by the anxiety that God has rejected him, and by his failure 
as the would-be liberator of his people. Unlike the biblical account in Judges, 
Samson 
Agonistes 
focuses only on the last day of Samson’s life. Discerning that he was 
victimized by his own pride, Samson becomes chastened and humbled. He becomes 
acutely aware of the necessity to atone for his sinfulness. In a series of debates not 
unlike those in 
Paradise Regained 
between the Son and Satan, Samson engages 
Manoa, his father; Dalila, his temptress; and Harapha, a stalwart Philistine warrior. In 

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KHILOLA RAKHIMOVA, senior teacher, URSU 
16 
each of these encounters, Samson’s discourse manifests an upward trajectory, through 
atonement and toward regeneration, which culminates in the climactic action at the 
temple of Dagon where Samson vindicates himself. 
Echoing 
Paradise Lost
, which dramatizes the self-sacrifie of the Son, 
Samson 
Agonistes 
creates in its hero an Old Testament prefiguration of the very process of 
regeneration enabled by the Redeemer and afforded to fallen humankind. In this way, 
moreover, Samson exhibits the traits of Christian heroism that Milton elsewhere 
emphasized. But where the Son of 
Paradise Regained 
maintains steadfastly his 
resistance to temptation, Samson typifies human vulnerability to downfall. 
Accordingly, where in 
Paradise Regained 
the Son never loses God’s favour, 
Samson 
Agonistes 
charts how a victim of temptation can reacquire it. Despite the superficial 
resemblance between his muscular, warlike acts of destruction and those of Classical 
heroes, Samson is ultimately a Christian hero.