Literature: overview and critical perspectives

¶ … Samson Agonistes and Paradise Lost compares the similarities and the differences between the character of Samson in Samson Agonistes and Adam in Paradise Lost based on pride, blindness, love, maturity and worldly understanding. The paper also highlights the specific text from each of the novels.

Comparison Between Samson Agonistes

And Paradise Lost

None of the English writers of the past have had more intrinsic alliance with the chronicle of their era then John Milton. Although some of his most eminent works have fallen into political controversy, but it is these works produced by him which not only throw light upon the coexisting events of his age but upon the present age as well. During his lifetime Milton had deep liking for prose writing. Most of his writings can be categorized under the heading of religion, Episcopacy, education, divorce, freedom of press and on the existing monarchy system of his time. Milton's work was greatly influenced by Homer, Ovid, Virgil and Shakespeare. His most distinguished works are considered to be Samson Agonistes and Paradise Lost, published in 1761. As both plays demonstrate the tragedies in the lives of the main characters, it teaches a profound lesson to mankind and the laws of the world. Samson plays the main role in Samson Agonistes and the story in Paradise Lost revolves around Adam.

The play, Samson Agonistes opens with the blind Samson being imprisoned in the jails of Gaza there to labor as in a common work-house, on a Festival day, in the general cessation from labor, comes forth into the open Air, to a place nigh, somewhat retired there to sit a while and bemoan his condition (Judy Boss, Samson Agonistes). There family members and friends visit him. Later an officer comes to request for his presence at the feast before the lords but he refuses. Later convinced by his conscience he decides to go.

Paradise Lost opens with Satan holding a meeting in Hell with his accomplices, conspiring against God. There they come to know about a creature known as Man who God has created, which is not as powerful as the angels but is very much like by God. Satan and his accomplices decide to set on a mission to seek revenge from God by convincing Man against Him. The Man in the play is Adam who is a creature made to praise God and is submissive to Him. He later falls in love with Eve who has been created for him by God to wither away his loneliness. Both plays present a saga of good and evil, God's wishes for and against mankind and of tragedy and triumph. The characters of both the plays can greatly be compared on the points of pride, their love for their heroines, their blindness and their understanding of the world.

Samson's pride is seen in the beginning of the play when Samson while relaxing from the laborious work is thinking about his glorious past and the honor he was once blessed with. He cannot believe his present condition and the pains he is exhorted too. In the play, Samson states that instead of living a life of servitude, he was promised to lead a role similar to that of Israel i.e. he was born to lead. He sympathizes his life of obscurity; instead of his playing a great role against all evil is bounded by shackles in the prison of Gaza, blinded and helpless. While he boasts about his mission, which God subjected him to, he also blames and complains to God for putting him in such misery. He says,

But rush upon me thronging, and present

Times past, what once I was, and what am now." And Why was my breeding ordered and prescribed

As of a person separate to God,

Designed for great exploits, if I must die

Betrayed, captived, and both my eyes put out,

Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze,

To grind in brazen fetters under task

With this heaven - gifted strength? O. glorious strength,

Put to the labour of a beast, debased

Lower than bond - slave! Promise was that I

Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver!

Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him

Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves,

Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke (John Milton, Samson Agonistes, Part I).

He constantly speaks of himself as a special missionary of God sent on earth to accomplish several tasks and thus save mankind from corruption and vices. Samson says,

Whom God hath of his special favour raised

As their deliverer? If he aught begin,

How frequent to desert him and at last

To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds! (John Milton, Samson Agonistes, Part I).

While talking to his father, Samson once again praises himself as the divine messenger of God especially chosen to destroy enemies. He considers himself above all other men gifted by God with the mightiest strength. Samson says, was his nursling once and choice delight,

His destined from the womb,

Promised by heavenly message twice descending.

Under his special eye

Abstemious I grew up and thrived amain;

He led me on to mightiest deeds,

Above the nerve of mortal arm,

Against the Uncircumcised, our enemies:

But now hath cast me off as never known,

And to those cruel enemies,

Whom I by his appointment had provoked,

Left me all helpless, with the irreparable loss

Of sight, reserved alive to be repeated

The subject of their cruelty or scorn (John Milton, Samson Agonistes, Part II).

Samson's pride is once again seen when his wife Dalila comes to visit him in the prison to seek his forgiveness. He is stubborn in forgiving her and blames her for hating him when all the other men of the country honored and respected him. Samson's pride is the result of the respectable life he once used to live and the miserable and pitiful life he is now exposed too. Samson says,

If in my flower of youth and strength, when all men

Loved, honoured, feared me, thou alone could hate me (John Milton, Samson

Agonistes, Part II).

When Harapha comes to take Samson to the feast both men end up in an argument and Samson is again caught in boasting about this bravery and his might. He tells Harapha that his lords were nothing compared to him, as they could not defeat him with all their powers put together. The only way they conquered his strength was with the help of a weak woman by bribing her with riches and gold. Samson says,

Such usage as your honourable Lords

Afford me, assassinated and betrayed;

Who durst not with their whole united powers

In fight withstand me single and unarmed,

Nor in the house with chamber - ambushes

Close - banded durst attack me, no, not sleeping,

Till they had hired a woman with their gold,

Breaking her marriage - faith, to circumvent me (John Milton, Samson

Agonistes, Part III).

Adam pride in Milton's Paradise Lost is similar to Samson's as far as admiration for his own self is concerned. He too is God's favorite and most beloved creature created as a symbol of good or virtue. The difference between them is that unlike and Adam is that Adam constantly sings glories for God and praises him. Both Adam and Eve take immense pride in their existence. Their life is presents to them constant and luxuriant joy. Adam says,

Warring in Heav'n against Heav'ns matchless King:

Ah wherefore! he deservd no such return

From me, whom he created what I was

In that bright eminence, and with his good

Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.

What could be less then to afford him praise,

The easiest recompence, and pay him thanks,

How due! yet all his good prov'd ill in me,

And wrought but malice; lifted up so high sdeind subjection, and thought one step higher

Would set me highest, and in a moment quit

The debt immense of endless gratitude,

So burthensome, still paying, still to ow; (John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV, Line

Adam and Eve take a lot of prides in the beautiful kingdom they are provided home in by God. They say,

In narrow room Natures whole wealth, yea more,

Heaven on Earth, for blissful Paradise

Of God the Garden was, by him in the East

Of Eden planted; Eden stretchd her Line

From Auran Eastward to the Royal Towrs

Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian Kings,

Or where the Sons of Eden long before

Dwelt in Telassar: in this pleasant soile

His farr more pleasant Garden God ordaind;

Out of the fertil ground he caus'd to grow

All Trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;

And all amid them stood the Tree of Life,

High eminent, blooming Ambrosial Fruit

Of vegetable Gold; and next to Life (John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV, Line 196).

Adam takes pride to be a creature who has been endowed with so much blessings of God. Hence, both Samson and Adam's pride are the same as far as they have honor. Their honor and respect is the prime reason for their sense of pride.

While Adam is talking to Raphael he tells him what he remembered when God created him. Adam reveals that according to God's wishes, the entire of his creation was his.

Creature form'd of Earth, and him endow,

Exalted from so base original,

With Heav'nly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed

He effected; Man he made, and for him built

Magnificent this World, and Earth his seat,

Him Lord pronounc'd, and, O indignitie!

Subjected to his service Angel wings,

And flaming Ministers to watch and tend

Thir earthlie Charge: Of these the vigilance

I dread, and to elude, thus wrapt in mist

Of midnight vapor glide obscure, and prie (John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV, Line 149).

In the beginning of Samson Agonistes, Samson is introduced to the audience as a blind person. While Samson complains about his current situation he also complains about this state of blindness. Samson says,

Why was my breeding ordered and prescribed

As of a person separate to God,

Designed for great exploits, if I must die

Betrayed, captived, and both my eyes put out (John Milton, Samson Agonistes, Part I).

Samson blames himself about his blindness by trusting Dalila, his wife. It is clear to the audience that he does not repent his life of servitude as much as his state of blindness.

Suffices that to me strength is my bane,

And proves the source of all my miseries

So many, and so huge, that each apart

Would ask a life to wail. But, chief of all, loss of sight, of thee I most complain!

Blind among enemies! O. worse than chains,

Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!

Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, and They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed

To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong,

Within doors, or without, still as a fool,

In power of others, never in my own

Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.

A dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,

Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse

Without all hope of day!

A first - created Beam, and thou great Word (John Milton, Samson Agonistes, Part I).

To Samson a body that cannot see is deprived from all the blessings of the world. To him day is exactly like night when then there is no sun and nothing but darkness prevails. He shows great pessimism when he says,

As in the land of darkness, yet in light,

To live a life half dead, a living death,

And buried; but, O yet more miserable!

Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave;

Buried, yet not exempt,

By privilege of death and burial,

From worst of other evils, pains, and wrongs;

But made hereby obnoxious more

To all the miseries of life,

Life in captivity

Among inhuman foes (John Milton, Samson Agonistes, Part I).

The above lines greatly reflect Samson's devastation and frustration towards life. What further discourages him is when other people in the play pity his very living conditions. In his state of physical blindness Samson recalls the blindness of vision for the future, which he possessed while he was gifted with the vision of his eyes and still could not see the deceiving nature of Dalila. Samson reconsiders his current state of blindness and life to better still than his blindness towards Dalila's real character. He blames Love to be the true cause for his present state. He says, yielded, and unlocked her all my heart,

Who, with a grain of manhood well resolved,

Might easily have shook off all her snares;

But foul effeminacy held me yoked

Her bond - slave. O indignity, O blot

To Honour and Religion! servile mind

Rewarded well with servile punishment!

The base degree to which I now am fallen,

These rags, this grinding, is not yet so base

As was my former servitude, ignoble,

Unmanly, ignominious, infamous,

True slavery; and that blindness worse than this,

That saw not how degenerately I served (John Milton, Samson Agonistes, Part II).

Adam in Paradise Lost is not physically blind but he too is blinded like Samson as far as his vision for the future is concerned. In Book VIII of Paradise Lost, Adams request for a partner and the creation of Eve is what eventually becomes the reason for Adams downfall. Adam like Samson is blinded by love and is willing to do anything for it, even give up his life on the heaven. Both Eve and Dalila are a symbol of beauty. Even though both men acknowledge their heroines to be weaker than them, they cannot help praising them as a result of their great admiration for them. Adam out of his love for Eve refers to her as a wise, virtuous and discreet creature.

Later it is Adam's wise Eve who after being fooled by Satan eats the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. After Eve tells Adam about her whereabouts and her eating of the forbidden fruit, he becomes worried but soon realizes that he cannot be departed from her and decides to eat the fruit to undergo the same punishment together.

On th' other side, Adam, soon as he heard

The fatal Trespass don by Eve, amaz'd,

Astonied stood and Blank, while horror chill

Ran through his veins, and all his joynts relax'd;

From his slack hand the Garland wreath'd for Eve

Down drop'd, and all the faded Roses shed:

Speechless he stood and pale, till thus at length

First to himself he inward silence broke.

A fairest of Creation, last and best

Of all Gods Works, Creature in whom excell'd

Whatever can to fight or thought be found,

Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!

How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,

Defac't, deflourd, and now to Death devote?

Rather how hast thou yeelded to transgress

The strict forbiddance, how to violate

The sacred Fruit forbidd'n! som cursed fraud

Of Enemie hath beguil'd thee, yet unknown,

And mee with thee hath ruind, for with thee

Certain my resolution is to Die;

How can I live without thee, how forgoe

Thy sweet Converse and Love so dearly joyn'd,

To live again in these wilde Woods forlorn? (John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book

Hence, both Samson and Adam are blinded by their love but the only difference between both of their condition is that Samson trust on Dalila lead him to physical blindness and Adam's love for Eve casts him out of paradise.

The relationship, which Samson had with Dalila, is initially the same as Adam's with Eve but the relationship between the hero and heroine of Samson Agonistes changes after Samson is exposed to such brutal living conditions. The character of Dalila is introduced to the audience through Samson's perspective as Monstrous, Fallacious, unclean and unchaste. In Part I of the play while Samson talk to the Chorus, it is obvious to the audience that Samson once very much was in love with Dalila and married her against the wishes of his parents. He trusted and loved her with all of his heart, as he had only opened his heart to her. Samson says,

The first I saw at Timna, and she pleased

Me, not my parents, that I sought to wed

The daughter of an Infidel. They knew not That what I motioned was of God; I knew

From intimate impulse, and therefore urged

The marriage on, that, by occasion hence, might begin Israel's deliverance

The work to which I was divinely called.

She proving false, the next I took to wife that I never had! found wish too late!)

Was in the vale of Sorec, Dalila,

That specious monster, my accomplished snare.

I thought it lawful from my former act,

And the same end, still watching to oppress

Israel's oppressors. Of what now I suffer

She was not the prime cause, but I myself,

Who, vanquished with a peal of words, (O weakness!)

Gave up my fort of silence to a woman (John Milton, Samson Agonistes, Part I).

After deceiving Samson's trust, Dalila loses all of her respect from her husband's eyes who hates her and refuses to even speak to her when she comes to visit him in the prison. While talking to his father, Samson again refers to her with utter disrespect and regrets his relationship with her. He is greatly angry with her for selling her love for gold and selling her husband's trust to his enemies.

Sole author I, sole cause. If aught seem vile,

As vile hath been my folly, who have profaned

The mystery of God, given me under pledge

Of vow, and have betrayed it to a woman,

Canaanite, my faithless enemy.

This well I knew, nor was at all surprised,

But warned by oft experience. Did not she

Of Timna first betray me, and reveal

The secret wrested from me in her highth

Of nuptial love professed, carrying it straight

To them who had corrupted her, my spies

And rivals? In this other was there found

More faith, who, also in her prime of love,

Spousal embraces, vitiated with gold,

Though offered only, by the scent conceived

Her spurious first - born, Treason against me? (John Milton, Samson Agonistes, Part

Dalila is presented to the audience as a figure of radiant beauty. The chorus too is astounded by her rare attractiveness. Here a great contrast of Samson's blindness is given to the audience; when he was in love with her he was not physically blind but blinded by her love, now after she comes to visit him in the prison, he is physically blind, not blinded by her love. Perhaps Samson's blindness prohibits him from submitting to her charms. Dalila weeps and repents her acts. She tries to show to the audience regrets over her husband's state. She even accepts her fault in getting Samson into this condition. She professes her love for him and states her willingness to accomplish anything in order to seek his forgiveness, even take his insult. Not falling for her spell Samson calls her a sorceress who likes to play her games and a Hyena and orders her to leave.

Out, out, Hyaena! These are thy wonted arts,

And arts of every woman false like thee

To break all faith, all vows, deceive, betray;

Then, as repentant, to submit beseech,

And reconcilement move with feigned remorse,

Confess, and promise wonders in her change

Not truly penitent, but chief to try

Her husband, how far urged his patience bears,

His virtue or weakness which way to assail:

Then, with more cautious and instructed skill,

Again transgresses, and again submits;

That wisest and best men, full oft beguiled,

With goodness principled not to reject

The penitent, but ever to forgive,

Are drawn to wear out miserable days,

Entangled with a poisonous bosom - snake,

If not by quick destruction soon cut off,

As I by thee, to ages an example (John Milton, Samson Agonistes, Part II).

Dalila after employing all of her tricks realizes that Samson will not be easily melted and is forced to change her tactic. She than tries to find an excuse for her actions and tells him that her sins were committed out of weakness.

A may, if possible, thy pardon find

The easier towards me, or thy hatred less.

First granting, as I do, it was a weakness

In me, but incident to all our sex,

Curiosity, inquisitive, importune

Of secrets, then with like infirmity

To publish them - both common female faults

Was it not weakness also to make known

For importunity, that is for naught,

Wherein consisted all thy strength and safety?

To what I did thou shew'dst me first the way.

But I to enemies revealed, and should not!

Nor should'st thou have trusted that to woman's frailty:

Ere I to thee, thou to thyself wast cruel.

Let weakness, then, with weakness come to parle,

So near related, or the same of kind;

Thine forgive mine, that men may censure thine (John Milton, Samson Agonistes, Part

Dalila tries her best to abate Samson's hatred for her but fails miserably as he will not permit herself to be blinded by her wickedness once again.

Adam's relationship is considered to be rather different from Samson and Dalila. Even though Adam too suffers much from God as a result of Eve's act but he does not treat her in the same way as Samson treated Dalila. Adam knows that Eve will suffer much after eating the forbidden fruit and decides to adopt the same path for his fear of departing from her.

How can I live without thee, how forgoe

Thy sweet Converse and Love so dearly joyn'd,

To live again in these wilde Woods forlorn?

Should God create another Eve, and I

Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee

Would never from my heart; no, I feel

The Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh,

Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State

Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe (John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book