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The Poem
- Duquesne University Press
- Chapter
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The Poem 1–114. The part of a Greek tragedy that preceded the chorus’s entrance was called the πρόλογος, or “prologos” (Aristotle, Poetics 12.2). Parker notes that only Aeschylus’s Suppliant Maidens and Persians do not have the prologos (not to be confused with a prologue in the modern sense); both plays instead begin with a processional ode by the chorus (Milton’s Debt 15). Parker finds ancient precedent for other aspects of Milton’s prologos and compares both Euripides (e.g., thirteen of his tragedies begin, like SA, with a soliloquy) and Sophocles (e.g., his plays, like SA, “begin quickly” and are dominated by their principal characters). Parker, however, emphasizes the unique characteristics of SA’s prologos : “[it] is longer by twenty-seven lines than the longest opening speech in the extant plays.... There is also no ancient model for a soliloquy which grows out of words addressed to a silent companion” (Milton’s Debt 94, 96). Commentators discuss various precedents for Samson’s opening speech. Cumberland writes that “Samson possesses all the terrific majesty of Prometheus chained, the mysterious distress of Œdipus, and the pitiable wretchedness of Philoctetes” (337). Sheppard alternatively offers a detailed analysis of what he calls the “Aeschylean symmetry” of the prologos (157–59); Brewer also compares Samson’s opening lament with Prometheus’s soliloquy in Prometheus Bound (914–15); Kitto similarly suggests that Samson’s opening speeches echo Prometheus’s speeches to the chorus from Aeschylus: in both cases, “the essential drama” is the character’s “present mind” (60). But Hill discusses how “Samson is more than a fallen Hercules or Prometheus, more than a tragic image of despoiled strength; he is spiritually dead.... [and] he realizes that he is” (152). Arthos also writes that Milton begins with “the heart of the matter” and foregrounds “the fatigue of the spirit,” whereas, in contrast, “the characteristic note of the opening of the classical tragedies approximates the note of proclamations, 84 Samson Agonistes: The Poem 85 before a temple or before the king’s palace”; Arthos suggests that the “manner” of Samson’s words “and what they point to is a play to proceed as melodramma does” (171, 172, 174). Ralli finds in this soliloquy “a quality present in no other of Milton’s poems”: “The utter loneliness of a defeated human soul is what strikes us first, but as we read and meditate we discover that to this soul, defeated yet repentant, God is present” (141–42). But Christopher argues that “the bulk of Samson’s opening soliloquy implicitly accuses God.... He complains of nothing less than a divine betrayal” (363). On Samson’s remorse, see 46n. Discussing the versification, Ellis-Fermor writes: “The prevailing movement [lines 1 to circa 65]...is slow, lifeless, and inert. The lines drag, like the thought. Sometimes they are deliberately unmusical and formless; they seem again and again about to drift into silence.... This is the natural musical opening for the play.... Passages of more vigour, in thought as in movement, break in here from time to time, but the inertia re-asserts its weight throughout the opening phases and even at intervals up to the entry of Dalila” (148). See 67–109n. 1–11. Commentators discuss the beauty and biographical implications of these lines. Johnson (Rambler 16 July 1751) finds “the beginning...beautiful and proper,...with a graceful abruptness” (218). Mahood is reminded of the invocations to the Holy Spirit in PL and thinks Milton intended the “echo” to “prepare us for the autobiographical character of the tragedy” (318). Charles Williams similarly thinks Milton alludes to his own writing of poetry (English Poetic Mind 143), and J. Macmillan Brown more emphatically suggests that “it is Milton himself who appears at the beginning...; he is a prisoner in Philistine or Restoration London” (34). But Hughes thinks “Samson is less the mouthpiece for his creator’s lyric cry than he is the representative of all blind humanity” (John Milton 425), and Upton earlier dismisses interpretations that cast Samson as a surrogate for Milton after the Restoration: “these mystical and allegorical reveries have more amusement in them, than solid truth; and savour but little of cool criticism” (sig. M1v). Lawry thinks Samson’s opening speech is more evocative and inclusive, addressed not only to a “literal Greek kophon prosopon [silent face]...but also to the approaching chorus; to his ‘guide’ in the temple of Dagon; to his tempters...; to his own restless mind; to God; and to the audience...