Typological Impulses in Samson Agonistes

The article argues, through a comparison of Milton’s play with Vondel’s Holy Revenge and in canvassing and organizing some of the more consequent recent readings of Samson Agonistes, that two of Milton’s narrative choices make for an especially reflexive typological play: (1) his rendition of Samson as a non-governing judge, a judge who leads his people not by organizing them but by acts of exemplary individual violence against the enemy; and (2) his historicist focalization of the tragic action – that is, his historicization of the Chorus along with the protagonists. This results in the synchronic inflection of the typological opposition between old and new dispensations, issuing in a narrative analysis of religious-social over-determination rather than simple succession. I then argue, in a close analysis of the pattern of inspirations or intimate impulses in the play, that Milton’s tragic plot tracks continuing Christian universalization and privatization and attributes this ongoing reform to the revolution.