[Milton-L] Reading Samson Agonistes

Sat Mar 1 17:29:28 EST 2008

rom: milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu on behalf of Alan Rudrum
Sent: Sat 23-Feb-08 9:32 PM
To: John Milton Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] RE: Samson's prayer for revenge

"The fundamental flaw in Wood's book is his misunderstanding and consequent misuse of biblical material" ....It seems reasonable to point out that intellectual integrity requires us to engage with responsible criticism of our work, rather than to ignore it.  

Like Carey, [Irene] Samuel describes Samson as vengeful.  Certainly in the biblical account, Samson prays "that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes" (Judges 16:28); but in Milton's poem the Messenger relates that "he stood, as one who pray'd / Or some great matter in his mind revolv'd" (1637-38).   The word "revenge" is used four times in Samson Agonistes, three times by Manoa and once by the Chorus, never by Samson.  

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[1] <https://webmail.stfx.ca/exchange/dwood/Drafts/RE:%20%5bMilton-L%5d%20RE:%20Samson%27s%20prayer%20for%20revengr.EML/1_text.htm#_ftnref1>  Derek N.C. Wood, 'Exiled from Light': Divine Law, Morality, and Violence in Milton's Samson Agonistes, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001, 51.

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Brief Reply

[My first attempt to send this is probably speeding through Orion about now. If you have the misfortune to receive both, please delete the first. This second 'edition' is the authoritative one.]

             Dare one reply to an Olympian thunderbolt? I read Alan Rudrum's early publications in the sixties and didn't realise how young this brilliant scholar was then. I read  his review of my book at the time it appeared and at first was tempted to answer it. I thought it was well-written and readable like everything he writes. Also,I noted the poisonous, little barbs of personal insult in it, as there are in much of what he writes nowadays. Does any one answer reviews? Since I had fully answered all his criticisms in my book, I decided not to take a second bite at the cherry. However, here I am conjured to reply.

He notes I omitted half a verse of Hebrews, (not relevant to the point I was making, by the way) and, as a result, he describes me as not being able to read the Bible That half-line said that the Old Testament heroes are perfected by 'us' and now, with us, can enter into God's rest. What on earth showed this supposed inability to read The Good Book?

There is no doubt in my book about Samson's being a hero of faith. His faith is not in question: but there many questions about the ethic by which he chooses to use his strength . There is an index of Biblical citations in my book for any one who wishes to examine them.. For his part, Rudrum is a careless reader of Milton's text: there are six mentions of 'revenge' in Samson, as I said, not the four he has noticed. The two he missed are quite important as I will show (SA 484, 1462, 1468,1591, 1660, 1712). Also, he doesn't seem to understand how Miltonic allusion and echo function. (One of our best commentators on these, John Leonard, shows how richly an allusion may refer to all the details of the passage alluded to, including its context). Biblical imitation is different from ordinary fictional imitation. Where the messenger is uncertain what Samson is doing (thinking or praying) the 17th C. Christian reader knew. The Word of God had told him through the inspired divine redactor: it was a prayer, and the prayer was for revenge.The powerful intertextual echo in 'prayer' directs us to the original story text. Milton could easily have avoided this and omitted the echo but he didn't.. A moment before this Milton had invented Manoa's ransom news:  the finest Philistine lords, the most 'generous' and 'civil' and magnanimous, had 'enough revenged'. Milton invented this and placed it just there deliberately. Their humane, compassionate nature is juxtaposed almost immediately with the hideous scream of three thousand people being crushed to death by Samson. We had also just been told that the lords who persisted in 'revenge and spite' were 'wondrous harsh' and the most committed idol worshippers, Milton's emphatic invented comments on  revenge are carefully placed near Samson's horrifyng slaughter. Manoa finds his son's revenge 'dreadful' (1591), and is satisfied his son is 'fully revenged' (1712); the chorus rejoices at the thought of 'heaps of slaughtered' (1530) and the messenger is in shock at the horror he has seen (1542). Milton hammers away at the fact of Samson's revenge and the revolting nature of it. The play records a variety of attitudes to revenge, ranging from the triumphalist gloating of the Israelites to the kinder, forgiving spirit of some Philistines. A Letter to Hebrews has a powerful reminder that Vengeance belongeth unto me... saith the Lord (10 v.30), following a celebration of brotherly love, that  acts as comment on Samson' behaviour (if I've understood the Bible correctly).

            Dr. Rudrum graduated in the sixties and seems to be locked into sixties' readings of Milton and their offspring. F.M. Krouse's book in 1949 was trashed by Parker, then the greatest living Milton scholar. Nonetheless, that book shaped Samson criticism from 1950 to about 1980. The key idea was regeneration. Milton critics were still smarting from Johnson's remark that  the play lacked a middle. Now critics tried to show that each of Samson's visitors effected a stage forward in his spiritual cleansing.. All sorts of Christian concepts were invoked: conversion, grace, repentance, the World, the Flesh and the Devil etc: till Samson emerged as the purified champion of God. He was pure, he was non-pareil, because he was a Hero of Faith. It was 'forgotten' that Doctrina Christiana had described the stages of regeneration and Samson had passed through  them before the play began. Arguing for this exemplary saint led some of the best scholars into  the strangest justifications of his brutal mass genocide:

Radzinowicz: "[t]he exemplary in Samson Agonistes illustrates the mercy of God; Samson's final act in effect is to 'spread his name / Great among the Heathen round.' The knowledge that the 'mercy of heaven' may reside even in a 'hideous noise' is the consolation the drama brings. Thus deeds meriting fame are deeds exemplifying knowledge, deeds 'to knowledge answerable.' Samson lives to learn and dies to educate" (264-65)

Bennett: ." Samson achieves Christian liberty;" divine love, she says, is present at the destruction of the Philistines as it is in the flames over Sodom. Ms. Bennett moves fluently from Samson to a moving comparison with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the anti-Nazi activist (150). 

Christopher Hill: "The happier Paradise within was still to be regained on earth. Samson perhaps regained it for himself at the moment of exultation when the roof of Dagon's temple came crashing down" (318) 

Isn't this grotesque? How many victims of 9/11 noticed the present love of God or his heavenly mercy? Is it really thinkable that Milton could have identified the Christian serenity of the 'paradise within' with the homicidal vengefulness of that massive slaughter at the temple? It seems impossible to me that the 'love of God' feasted on the horrifying massacre of 3000 screaming and dying human beings. Perhaps this is what Rudrum means by my'not knowing how to read the Bible'? Certainly Milton's text does not seem to present such ideas, whatever a higher theology suggests. In this period (post Krouse), few interpreters quoted the darker, uglier parts of Milton's text. I lectured on my reading at Keele University in 1978 and only later came upon Carey and Samuel and Wittreich, and was comforted  that I was not alone in some solipsistic, hermeneutic bubble.

SA is not an oblique autobiography of blind Milton: Samson did not learn Milton's patience in blindness; he could never have written 'When I consider how my light is spent...' The play does not signify Milton's hope of some future destruction of the Philistine court of Charles II. But it may be a monument to the tragic failure of the Good Old Cause. Much blood was shed and nothing was achieved by the dying saints. All that tragic suffering and waste led only to the return of the King. Many critics have seen Samson's murderous behaviour as justified by the angel who prophesied he would begin the deliverance of Israel. But there is no celebration of  his great victory in the next chapters of Judges. The Philistines continued to oppress the Israelites until David's victory and still they continued till the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Samson's death  achieved nothing. Apparently,Samson's genocidal slaughter was pointless. So it was with the G.O.C. In 1660. Charles was back  and his cohorts were stronger than ever. Frequently, late in Judges, there is the repeated lament: 'In those days, there was no king in Israel; each person did as he wished.' Samson's death was soon followed by the coming of the monarchy to Israel. And the king came back to England to make Milton's cup run over.As for Samson's angel, its promise of deliverance for the Jews was not realised. They were to suffer an even worse captivity in years to come. But Milton, too,had thought he had 'apparent signes' of God's support for the G.O.C. (CPW. 3. 193), for the justice of the Puritan revolution  and for all the blood that had been shed. Like the angel, the signes seemed to be from God. Everybody was mistaken. 

S.A. is about the tragedy of God's inscrutability. God is silent about His will even when he seems to speak clearly. The play is about the terrible difficulty of knowing and hearing God. All that blood was shed in vain. 'The Lord had blasted them and spit in their faces', wept Major General Fleetwood.

                                  Some notes on Rudrum's comments.

1.        In a crude and simplistic distinction, Rudrum classifies 'traditional' readings as treating Samson like a 'true' hero while revisionists saw him as a 'false' hero. Not true. I argue S. is a 'hero of faith' although Wittreich does describe him as 'satanic'. What on earth is a false hero?

2         .'Traditionalists' see Samson as enabled by the angelic promise that he would achieve  deliverance and so was justified in his violence [but as we saw, nothing was achieved except a mass murder.]

2.       Rudrum's early quibbles with my textual readings are so delicately phrased that it is          hard  to know what he means e.g. my quoted sentence about the 'unnaturally strong man'. What is it precisely that we do not know? Revenge? I've shown that. That he wants to do it? When he went with the messenger, sensing he might be able to do some 'great act,' something'remarkable? his 'inexpiable hate'? He told Dalila he would feel such hate if she 'took the way' and she did take the way!

'Tear her limb from limb'? He warned her if he would do this if she approached him      

so she did not....! What's wrong with my reading? Come on Dr. Rudrum, get          

serious! It is a 'warning for her protection' says Dr Rudrum. Against what? against his own    uncontrollable hatred and violence! Precisely my point.

         4.                      Silly sarcasm about their 'living happily together' ignores Milton's injunction that 

                      in mixed religious marriages, the true believer should instruct the other partner and

win him or her gently into true belief. (DDD). Does Samson try? In half a line he dumps 'her of Timna' and looks around at once for another woman to use as an instrument for his own political    aims. To her he whines  later that she betrayed his love. This is a slimy, puke-provoking lie. He is a liar like she is. They are both scheming treason against the other but she wins. Ergo, she is the more intelligent one  .Stasis? I was looking at the tropic effect of movement in shaping the structure.The soothing effect of escaping from a stinking prison house into the fresh open air outside is likely to be physically refreshing; it is hardly a spiritual advance. In fact, his misery brings 'restless thoughts' like a 'deadly swarm of hornets'.As he recounts his misery we see not renewal but spiritual stagnation.

I am still not sure why Dr Rudrum freaked out when I omitted that half  verse from Hebrews. It said the good people of the OT would be perfected by Christ's sacrifice, and taken to heaven to enjoy God's rest. Perhaps he did not read the part of my book where I argue that Samson is a hero of faith, not a satanic villain or the Antichrist. Hebrews tells us the OT saints are all perfected wirh us. That's pretty obvious in the Letter. J.H. Davies in  The Cambridge Bible Commentary which I leaned on heavily)  writes: "Christ's work being done, 'the men of old' can receive their reward' in company with us."  The note to 12: 23 shows a little uncertainty. What's the problem? What have I missed?

Well, Dr. Rudrum's review article was carefully crafted given the time he had; my reply is hurried and incomplete,necessarily. Further discussion can be found in my book which is more carefully prepared.

Best wishes to all persons of good will!

Derek

Derek N. C. Wood,

Senior Research Professor and Shastri Fellow,,

St. Francis Xavier University,

ANTIGONISH,    NS,

Canada,    B2G 2W5

e-mail: dwood at stfx.ca <mailto:dwood at stfx.ca> 

phone: 902-867-2328 (w)

           902-863-5433 (h)

fax:      902-867-5400

web:     http://www.stfx.ca/people/dwood/Welcome.html <http://www.stfx.ca/people/dwood/Welcome.html>  

Derek N. C. Wood,
Senior Research Professor and Shastri Fellow,,
St. Francis Xavier University,
ANTIGONISH,    NS,
Canada,    B2G 2W5

e-mail: dwood at stfx.ca <mailto:dwood at stfx.ca> 
phone: 902-867-2328 (w)
           902-863-5433 (h)
fax:      902-867-5400
web:     http://www.stfx.ca/people/dwood/Welcome.html <http://www.stfx.ca/people/dwood/Welcome.html>  

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