Re: Rép. : Re: [Milton-L] Samson as suicidebomber
Michael Bryson
michael.bryson at csun.edu
Wed May 13 17:49:08 EDT 2009
Perhaps. But I suspect not. In fact, I am beginning
to suspect that something far more radical is going
on at the end of PR. Paradise is regained, neither
through through bloody sacrifice on a cross, nor
through the lessons of a public ministry, but by one
man's resistance to temptation--and the temptations
of the public realm, at that. I think, for Milton,
the Passion narrative (the ransom sacrifice) was not
only beside the point, it was an active distraction
from the point, after the fashion of Satan's
temptations in PR. The model of "salvation" on offer
therein is something that is done *to* or *for*
people, a model the Son specifically rejects in PR
(refusing to "save" either Jew or Gentile). Milton
specifically chooses to illustrate the regaining of
Paradise as a private act, done "in secret" and
"above heroic" (especially in the epic sense of
heroism as resulting in glory and fame).
This is where my questions are leading me right
now--I think Milton's Son in PR is rather more
"Gnostic" than "Orthodox," at least in terms of the
emphasis that is placed on inner illumination,
secret acts, intimate and experiential knowledge as
opposed to the formal, book-learned knowledge Satan
offers, and the manifest lack of interest on the
part of character and poet in
inhabiting/illustrating the more traditional aspects
of the savior role. In that light, I would argue
(and have so argued) that "Tempt not the Lord thy
God" serves as an assertion, not of separateness
from the divine, but of unity therewith.
I'm pulling something like this together to send off
to the Murfreesboro conference this year, and am
thinking "out loud" a bit here. But I think this is
why Milton had such trouble with his poem on the
Passion--the emphasis is external and showy in a way
that PR's is not.
Michael Bryson
---- Original message ----
Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 14:19:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: JD Fleming <jfleming at sfu.ca>
Subject: Re: Rép. : Re: [Milton-L] Samson as
suicidebomber
To: John Milton Discussion List
<milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
>But what's the point of returning to the mother's
house private? To make it the springboard to the
public: the initiation of the ministry. "He said
and stood": speech-action. JD Fleming
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Michael Bryson" <michael.bryson at csun.edu>
>To: "John Milton Discussion List"
<milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
>Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 1:16:02 PM GMT
-08:00 US/Canada Pacific
>Subject: RE: Rép. : Re: [Milton-L] Samson as
suicidebomber
>
>
>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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>--
>James Dougal Fleming
>Associate Professor
>Department of English
>Simon Fraser University
>
>"das Fragwuerdige zu sehen"
>
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