Shifting Contexts: Reinterpreting Samson Agonistes

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Duquesne University Press, 2002 - Drama - 352 pages
Samson Agonistes is the climax and completion of Milton's poetic vision. As such, it has become the work at which the critical controversies in Milton studies converge and from which new critical perspectives on Milton's poems emerge. This book contends that there are several Samsons in the dramatic poem and multiple contexts and various traditions that bring to light Milton's unique rendition of a kaleidoscopic protagonist. To achieve its purposes, this book forges and deploys a new critical vocabulary of paramount importance not only to Miltonists but to critical theorists generally.Milton's religious and political thinking, his use of prosody and verse, his outlook on tragedy, and the like were all reexamined. Since this revisionist view of Samson Agonistes began to develop, it has unfolded with a decisiveness and momentum that now challenge the traditional view, if not overthrow it. The dramatic poem's ambiguities highlight Milton's innovative adaptation of the biblical narrative concerning Samson, undermine the traditional ideas of Samson's election by God and his redemption, question the typological alignment of the Hebraic and Christian scriptures whereby Samson traditionally is perceived as a "hero of faith"

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Contents

ONE Reinterpreting Samson Agonistes
1
Two Justifying Samsons Ways
67
THREE Glorious For A While
101
Copyright

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