Milton's Rival Hermeneutics: “Reason is But Choosing”

9. Fame, Shame, and the Importance of Community in Samson Agonistes

183 Fame, Shame, and the Importance of Community in Samson Agonistes Margaret Olofson Thickstun As a young man, Milton desired recognition and understood the social benefits of publicity, offering fame now and in the future as incentive to study hard (Prolusion 7), to refrain from destroying a poet’s house (“Captain or Colonel”), and to support a young poet in his years of expensive preparation (Ad Patrem). The more mature Milton understands clearly the dangers of fame and spells out explicitly the potential devastation of overvaluing public opinion. In Paradise Lost, desire for fame and fear of shame—concerns about how others perceive you—are bad motivations for action. Satan is strongly motivated by a desire for fame and, later, by fear of shame, a social emotion that hardens him in his sin. Once Eve has eaten from the tree of knowledge, she becomes acutely aware of herself as someone being perceived by others and of her need to control her self-presentation; this self-consciousness leads her into further sinning. In Samson Agonistes, Samson’s delight in 9D 184 Margaret Olofson Thickstun fame has led him to his catastrophic humiliation and infamy, which Dalila’s concern for others’ opinions and desire for her own fame have helped to bring about. In Paradise Regained, the Son expresses no interest in public recognition, categorically rejecting fame and power. Such a quick overview of Milton ’s work might lead one to conclude that he learned to resist the desire for human recognition and to repudiate the social emotions—pride and shame—connected to it.1 This essay will offer an alternative reading of the roles that Milton imagines the desire for fame and status within a community can play in a person’s spiritual development. Even as a young man, Milton understood the dangers of desiring fame and the importance of developing a sense of self independent from those around him, what Richard Strier calls “proper pride”;2 even in the last years of his life, Milton valued recognition and engaged in public debate. The reality of this fallen world may be that consideration of reputation, of how others will see us, tends to lead toward worldly rather than godly decisions. The Miltonic ideal may be that a person should not think about anything other than pleasing God by doing what is right in his eyes. But Milton’s fiction and his life suggest a continued belief that the social emotions rightly tempered can reinforce virtue. It is through their renewed companionship that Adam and Eve move beyond fruitless recriminations toward healthful and saving repentance ; it is through interaction with community that Samson moves from self-pity and despair to a clearer understanding of his responsibilities as “a person raised” to free his people. In Samson Agonistes as in Paradise Lost, the desire to restore human community—to look good in the eyes of those whose opinion you value—initiates the restoration of the protagonist ’s relationship with God. In Milton’s dramatization of the fallen world, a person’s relationship with God is mediated through other human beings and a person’s understanding of God’s will is developed in community. Fame, Shame, and Community 185 Just as there are competing reasons to desire fame, there are competing sources of shame. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul distinguishes between guilt, which he calls “godly sorrow,” and something he calls “the sorrow of the world” (2 Cor. 10). Worldly sorrow, as I have discussed in relation to the fallen angels, encourages inaction by focusing a person’s attention on nostalgia for the past and fostering self-pity rather than self-blame.3 Because it allows an individual to avoid self-examination, worldly sorrow seems closely related to the kind of shame that makes a person excuse and cover up past misbehavior. A person experiencing shame of this kind tries to hide, like Adam and Eve after the Fall, to blend into a larger group, like the rebel angels, or to explain why what he did was not really a bad thing, like Satan. But godly sorrow, as Paul explains, leads to repentance because it provokes a desire “to be clear in this matter” (2 Cor. 7:11). Although desire for glory and fear of shame often lead individuals into wrong actions, the discomfort of shame, experienced within a loving relationship, can force an individual toward moral growth...