[Milton-L] Samson as suicide bomber

[Derek Wood]

James (see excerpt below),
 
Something that puts me at odds with some commentators on Milton's Samson, is that I believe his thought changes profoundly after the failure of the Revolution: not everything, but some very important beliefs. One is a great new scepticism about building Sion through a violent revolution, past or future. So quoting what he thought before 1660 may not convince me about his thought in 1671. I'll quote from an abstract from something I wrote:
                         
". The failure of the revolution meant bitterness, a sense of betrayal or, in some cases, massive bewild­erment at God's treatment of his people. Trevor-Roper identifies three periods of profound depression in Milton before the Restoration but 1660 was undoubtedly the worst. Parker speaks of the Restoration as "the vast illumination of a major disillusion...the terrible fire that turns knowledge into wisdom." Where can we examine his thoughts at this time most accurately? On which issues precisely does he speak? Some of his views did not change but some did: how can we document these, given the danger he faced as a champion of the regicides, in expressing his political opinions? Most dissenters under Charles II spoke out in carefully guarded code if they dared speak at all. How are we to read this coded intertext? What was the 'wisdom' that he learned? 
 
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
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 



As much as we agonize over this event today, it was a morally
unambiguous act for the author of Judges, for the author of the book
of Hebrews, and probably for Milton given his support of Parliament
during the English Civil War. 
 
(James Rovirs)
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