RE: Rép. : Re: [Milton-L] Samson as suicidebomber

Wed May 13 16:16:02 EDT 2009

This is why I think it is fascinating that Milton
pairs PR and SA, with SA in the final position. The
Son and Samson each appeal to an inner motivation
(an inward oracle, or an intimate impulse/rousing
motions--which latter two may or may not be the same
thing for Samson), but Samson--like Satan--seeks the
divine without, in visible or audible signs, while
the Son seeks within. Even their endings are
diametrically opposite--the Son returning privately
to his mother's house (ducking out stage left while
the angels are trying to turn his triumph into a
public spectacle through song), and Samson--at least
in Manoa's imagination--becoming the object of
triumphant parades, monuments, and epic/lyric song
(as if the subject of the Samsoniad).

The contrast in terms of passion (as illustrated in
the Chorus' last speech) is also interesting. The
Son is an object case in the Renaissance ideal of
passion controlled by reason, while calm in SA comes
only as a result of some variation on catharsis--a
temporary effect, to be sure, and in need of
repeated applications to maintain. The contrast
between inner and outer, control and lack thereof,
reason and passion, liberty and license could not be
greater, at least in my view. In each case, the Son
is the former term, while Samson (and/or Manoa and
the Chorus) is the latter.

"SA is a sad, tragic study of the loneliness of
humanity, listening in the darkness for a God who
will not respond or appear, One who almost seems to
taunt us with ambiguous scraps that make us a little
better than hopeless, even then to deceive our
fragile hopes."

Perhaps because Samson--like so many of us--listens
in the wrong place, in the wrong way, and to the
wrong thing? Samson, as Milton presents him, seems
to me a classic idolator, making a God of his
*image* of God. It is no wonder that his image does
not respond to him. Whose does?

Michael Bryson

---- Original message ----

  Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 16:21:26 -0300
  From: "Derek Wood" <dwood at stfx.ca>
  Subject: RE: Rép. : Re: [Milton-L]  Samson as
  suicidebomber
  To: "John Milton Discussion List"
  <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
  >(See Michael Bryson's question below)
  >
  >Because Samson's God is 'unsearchable. . .' The
  God of Adam and Moses and Abraham no longer
  appears or speaks. No bushes burn. Samson is like
  us, or like17th C. Christians, lonely, sinful and
  bewildered. There had been signs once for Samson
  and yet he has come now to be shackled, enslaved
  and shamed. His apparently divine impulses led him
  to the Timnan woman and what a mess that turned
  out to be! His marriage to Dalila was not motioned
  by God and now he thinks God wants him to go to
  the idolatrous forbidden feast of Dagon. Milton
  himself was doubtful about the provenance of
  Samson's motions: 'whether prompted by God or by
  his own valour . . . '(CP 4.1, 102). He records
  his anxiety about such promptings elsewhere:
  "divine illumination . . . no man can know at all
  times to be in himself, much less to be at any
  time for certain in any other . . ." (CP 7, 242).
  >
  >The final words of the Chorus are sometimes taken
  to be a beautiful concluding comment by Milton
  himself but they are a tissue of mistakes and
  ironies e.g. they presume to 'search' what they
  say is unsearchable; their calm of mind comes from
  a massive bloodwork of slaughter; 'spent passion'
  is not admired by Milton elsewhere (e.g. he finds
  litanies are dead and worthless because they lack
  the spark of passion); all really is best in the
  end but the Philistines are not overcome in this
  false end: perhaps the real end is the eschaton
  but they do not know this etc.
  >
  >Milton had believed, after the defeat of Charles,
  that God by 'apparent signes' had signalled his
  approval of his Saints but now he found himself
  blind, defeated and shamed. Major General
  Fleetwood had cried out in the same situation,
  'God hath spet in our faces!'
  >
  >SA is a sad, tragic study of the loneliness of
  humanity, listening in the darkness for a God who
  will not respond or appear, One who almost seems
  to taunt us with ambiguous scraps that make us a
  little better than hopeless, even then to deceive
  our fragile hopes. Samson's best guess at
  liberation is like mad Lear's: 'Kill, kill, kill,
  kill, kill.' Those e-mails about Godot were
  unintentionally quite relevant.
  >
  >Derek Wood.
  >
  >
  >
  >
  >
  >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
  >phone: 902-867-2328 (w)
  > 902-863-5433 (h)
  >fax: 902-867-5400
  >web: http://www.stfx.ca/people/dwood
  <http://www.stfx.ca/people/dwood/Welcome.html>
  /Welcome.html
  >
  >________________________________
  >
  >
  > . . .There *is* a Dagon, then, in SA? Then why
  does Dagon--or Jehovah, for that matter--not speak
  in SA? Why, of the last three great works, does SA
  function as the one in which "God" is given no
  voice but that of human assertion? . . .
  >
  >Michael Bryson
  >
  >
  >
  >________________ >TNEF17430.rtf (16k bytes)
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