WEBVTT 00:02.160 --> 00:05.970 Professor John Rogers: We ended the last lecture, 00:05.970 --> 00:09.720 or actually I ended my last lecture -- The last lecture was 00:09.716 --> 00:13.326 Matt's -- I ended my last lecture on Paradise Regained 00:13.332 --> 00:17.662 with the brief consideration of the riddle of the sphinx. 00:17.660 --> 00:21.760 Satan was compared to the sphinx who had thrown herself 00:21.763 --> 00:26.553 off the "Ismenian steep" when her riddle had been discovered. 00:26.550 --> 00:28.560 The Son of God, you'll remember, 00:28.556 --> 00:32.306 was implicitly compared to Oedipus, who had figured out the 00:32.309 --> 00:36.129 riddle of his own identity by means of his exchange with the 00:36.127 --> 00:39.817 sphinx.I think it can be said that Samson Agonistes 00:39.816 --> 00:43.826 is more explicitly concerned with riddles and with riddling 00:43.828 --> 00:46.998 even than Paradise Regained was. 00:47.000 --> 00:49.980 One of the key moments -- although this isn't anything 00:49.977 --> 00:53.517 that Milton does very much with -- one of the key moments of the 00:53.516 --> 00:57.056 story of Samson that we get from the Book of Judges in the Bible 00:57.056 --> 01:00.476 involves Samson's posing of this big riddle: the riddle of the 01:00.483 --> 01:02.003 honey and the lion. 01:02.000 --> 01:05.260 It's Samson, at least in the Judges version 01:05.255 --> 01:08.665 of the story, who can be seen as assuming the 01:08.666 --> 01:10.446 role of the sphinx. 01:10.450 --> 01:14.810 He poses the riddles, and it's really his duty 01:14.806 --> 01:20.516 throughout his life to know when it is you should reveal the 01:20.517 --> 01:24.387 answer to the riddle, to the secret. 01:24.390 --> 01:27.950 Samson Agonistes is, I think, profoundly interested 01:27.951 --> 01:31.331 in this problem and is continually asking the question: 01:31.326 --> 01:34.826 how do you know when it's time--how do you know when it's 01:34.825 --> 01:36.945 time to reveal your secrets? 01:36.950 --> 01:41.420 Or -- to use the language that Milton uses in the seventh 01:41.423 --> 01:43.903 sonnet, "How soon hath time?" 01:43.900 --> 01:48.740 -- how do you know when it is that you have ripened? 01:48.739 --> 01:53.409 That's a riddle that it's the job of Samson in Samson 01:53.407 --> 01:57.817 Agonistes to figure out the answer to.Now, 01:57.819 --> 02:01.849 it's one of the ironies of literary history that this poem, 02:01.847 --> 02:05.177 which is really all about riddles and secrets, 02:05.180 --> 02:08.690 surely poses the biggest riddle for the scholarly, 02:08.688 --> 02:10.978 the academic, study of Milton. 02:10.979 --> 02:14.739 It has proven nearly impossible for scholars of Milton to 02:14.740 --> 02:18.430 determine when it was that Samson Agonistes -- 02:18.432 --> 02:22.732 to determine authoritatively or definitively when it was that 02:22.729 --> 02:24.609 this text was written. 02:24.610 --> 02:28.440 In that respect, it's utterly different from the 02:28.442 --> 02:32.522 other works of Milton's that can be dated much more 02:32.519 --> 02:34.939 authoritatively. We do know this. 02:34.940 --> 02:38.630 It first appears in 1671; it's published alongside 02:38.625 --> 02:39.835 Paradise Regained. 02:39.840 --> 02:43.530 So you have the title page of that 1671 volume, 02:43.528 --> 02:47.288 "Paradise Regained, a poem in four books," 02:47.289 --> 02:52.209 and then in a little typeface, "To which is added Samson 02:52.207 --> 02:54.667 Agonistes." Actually the Hughes 02:54.666 --> 02:58.266 edition reproduces for you just this title page -- it's 02:58.265 --> 03:00.645 on page 470. But there's no hard evidence 03:00.650 --> 03:03.700 for the date of the composition of the poem, and there are 03:03.704 --> 03:06.264 conflicting accounts, as of course you can imagine, 03:06.262 --> 03:08.102 of the date of composition.So I want to 03:08.104 --> 03:11.694 spend a little bit of time here, and I'll just do this briefly, 03:11.692 --> 03:15.462 thinking about the various scholarly accounts of when it 03:15.456 --> 03:18.806 was that Milton wrote Samson Agonistes, 03:18.810 --> 03:21.340 because all of these theories, I think, 03:21.337 --> 03:24.467 concerning the placement of Samson Agonistes in the 03:24.470 --> 03:27.770 Miltonic canon assume in one way or another that this poem is 03:27.767 --> 03:31.117 autobiographical -- that there's some kind of intimate, 03:31.120 --> 03:36.410 autobiographical component to this remarkable work. 03:36.410 --> 03:40.600 The assumption is that on some level Samson Agonistes 03:40.603 --> 03:44.953 almost necessitates a type of biographical reading. 03:44.949 --> 03:50.049 So first, and this is the most popular theory of the dating of 03:50.047 --> 03:53.387 the poem and it's the one I happen to, 03:53.389 --> 03:56.829 and that most people, subscribe to -- it's the theory 03:56.825 --> 04:00.785 that places Samson Agonistes as Milton's last poem, 04:00.789 --> 04:05.829 which means that this is a poem that's written well after the 04:05.831 --> 04:07.681 middle of the 1660s. 04:07.680 --> 04:11.300 Milton seems to have started writing Paradise Regained 04:11.301 --> 04:14.081 around 1665, so it would have been after 04:14.082 --> 04:16.872 that at some point, well into the Stuart 04:16.868 --> 04:20.628 restoration.This reading really suggests, to the 04:20.634 --> 04:24.144 extent that this is a thematic reading of the poem, 04:24.139 --> 04:27.689 that Samson is like Milton, the great political hero 04:27.685 --> 04:30.125 or the erstwhile great political hero. 04:30.129 --> 04:34.359 Samson had almost led the Hebrews to freedom by destroying 04:34.360 --> 04:38.220 so many of the Philistines with his extraordinary, 04:38.220 --> 04:41.640 divinely inspired violence, but the Hebrew leaders failed 04:41.636 --> 04:43.646 to join Samson in this mission. 04:43.649 --> 04:48.179 They ruined their chance for freedom from the Philistine 04:48.183 --> 04:50.803 yoke. In the 1650s and in the 1660s, 04:50.803 --> 04:54.693 Milton was always continually representing himself in just 04:54.685 --> 04:58.305 this same light. With the help of Milton's own 04:58.314 --> 05:02.904 aggressively propagandistic efforts, the English had begun 05:02.904 --> 05:07.254 to fulfill the promise of something like a full-fledged 05:07.251 --> 05:09.801 revolution, but the weak-minded 05:09.801 --> 05:13.121 parliamentary leaders had failed to carry it out; 05:13.120 --> 05:18.300 and out of some sort of moral weakness, the English people 05:18.303 --> 05:22.673 began to yearn again for subjection to the Stuart 05:22.667 --> 05:25.907 monarchy. It's in response to the tone of 05:25.913 --> 05:30.113 political disappointment that we can read in Samson Agonistes 05:30.108 --> 05:34.168 that scholars are led to date this work as a late one, 05:34.170 --> 05:37.100 as a final poem -- the final poem.Now, 05:37.104 --> 05:41.404 the second theory of the date of the composition of Samson 05:41.398 --> 05:44.688 Agonistes places it in the late 1640s, 05:44.690 --> 05:48.730 in the period somewhere between 1647 and 1653. 05:48.730 --> 05:52.260 This reading suggests that Samson Agonistes 05:52.260 --> 05:56.970 constitutes Milton's first great response to the onset of 05:56.967 --> 06:00.087 his blindness. By placing the poem in this 06:00.093 --> 06:03.903 period -- and you can tell what scholars are responding to in 06:03.899 --> 06:05.739 the poem with this theory. 06:05.740 --> 06:09.190 They're clearly trying to make some sense of the tremendous 06:09.189 --> 06:12.889 amount of pathos, and you could actually say the 06:12.887 --> 06:18.197 tremendous amount of self-pity, that charges Milton's treatment 06:18.195 --> 06:23.935 of Samson's blindness.Now, the third theory of the poem's 06:23.936 --> 06:28.986 composition places it even earlier in Milton's career 06:28.992 --> 06:31.522 during the early 1640s. 06:31.519 --> 06:36.099 This is the period in which Milton was writing the divorce 06:36.104 --> 06:38.984 pamphlets. In this account, 06:38.976 --> 06:44.096 the center of the poem becomes a reflection, 06:44.099 --> 06:50.519 or some sort of representation, of the betrayal Milton must 06:50.522 --> 06:55.182 have experienced himself when his wife of six weeks, 06:55.180 --> 06:59.540 Mary Powell, left him -- just abandoned him 06:59.535 --> 07:03.505 it seemed. She went home to her parents. 07:03.509 --> 07:05.859 Now in the poem, in Samson Agonistes, 07:05.862 --> 07:09.062 Dalila you'll remember -- she was a Philistine. 07:09.060 --> 07:13.120 She was a member of a political tribe that had so oppressed the 07:13.122 --> 07:16.792 Hebrews -- and Mary Powell's family had all been royalist 07:16.792 --> 07:22.892 during the English civil wars, and so to some extent perhaps 07:22.892 --> 07:27.702 Mary Powell herself was a royalist. 07:27.699 --> 07:30.849 The leanings, at least, of the Powell family, 07:30.846 --> 07:34.566 it has been conjectured, contributed significantly to 07:34.565 --> 07:38.925 what turned out to be merely the temporary erosion of Milton's 07:38.928 --> 07:42.808 first marriage. According to this theory then, 07:42.812 --> 07:47.502 the main thrust of Samson Agonistes isn't exclusively 07:47.496 --> 07:52.336 political, but it's domestic -- or domestic and political. 07:52.339 --> 07:56.829 Milton uses a biblical story to reinvent, and in some way to 07:56.826 --> 08:00.016 work through, the private disaster that was 08:00.020 --> 08:04.660 the early portion of his marriage to Mary Powell.Now, 08:04.660 --> 08:07.660 I think the third theory is -- it has to be wrong, 08:07.655 --> 08:10.765 that Samson Agonistes was written so early in 08:10.772 --> 08:12.792 Milton's career in the 1640s. 08:12.790 --> 08:17.770 But I am personally much too invested in the notion that this 08:17.772 --> 08:22.342 is the last poem to have its status be relinquished as a 08:22.340 --> 08:24.500 post-Restoration work. 08:24.500 --> 08:27.750 Nonetheless, I want to think about that 08:27.745 --> 08:32.525 third option that I've just mentioned and to focus on the 08:32.528 --> 08:36.628 nature of Milton's representation of the relation 08:36.628 --> 08:39.958 of Samson to Dalila in this poem, 08:39.960 --> 08:45.080 which is an undeniably powerful aspect of this work.Let me 08:45.076 --> 08:49.606 just digress here for a moment and explain to you why I 08:49.606 --> 08:53.796 pronounce her name "Dalila" and not "Delilah". 08:53.799 --> 08:56.109 When I use the word "Delilah" in this lecture, 08:56.112 --> 08:59.152 that will be referring to the character in the Old Testament 08:59.145 --> 09:02.125 from the Book of Judges -- the name with an h on the 09:02.126 --> 09:03.686 end. Milton doesn't have an h 09:03.692 --> 09:06.092 on the end. He uses the Latin spellings 09:06.092 --> 09:10.302 from the Latin Bible of all of the characters in Samson 09:10.300 --> 09:13.760 Agonistes. So the father is Manoa 09:13.758 --> 09:15.678 rather than Manoah. 09:15.679 --> 09:20.579 He makes up the name Harapha, but it's along the same sort of 09:20.575 --> 09:23.345 Latin lines of Dalila and Manoa. 09:23.350 --> 09:28.500 Who knows why Milton wants to classicize these names rather 09:28.498 --> 09:33.378 than using the English transliteration of the Hebrew! 09:33.379 --> 09:36.509 It's been conjectured that it just sounds prettier. 09:36.509 --> 09:40.599 You have a line like "the sumptuous Dalila floating this 09:40.604 --> 09:44.774 way," those extraordinary dactyls that seem incredibly so 09:44.774 --> 09:46.714 sensual and seductive. 09:46.710 --> 09:49.900 You couldn't have that with Delilah, "the sumptuous Delilah 09:49.896 --> 09:51.046 floating this way." 09:51.049 --> 09:55.689 It just doesn't -- it's not as sexy.Okay. 09:55.690 --> 10:00.100 That was just a pronunciation digression. 10:00.100 --> 10:05.120 Now the evidence for the scholars who date this poem as a 10:05.124 --> 10:10.244 really early one is usually taken from a scene in Milton's 10:10.237 --> 10:15.797 life that actually was narrated for us by Milton's nephew, 10:15.800 --> 10:19.550 Edward Phillips. So I'm going to ask you to turn 10:19.551 --> 10:22.451 to Milton's nephew's, Edward Phillips', 10:22.446 --> 10:27.086 biography of Milton at the end of the Hughes edition -- 10:27.092 --> 10:30.142 this is page 1032 in the Hughes. 10:30.139 --> 10:34.119 This is Phillips' account of how Milton and Mary Powell 10:34.117 --> 10:37.817 reunited, and it's an absolutely adorable narrative. 10:37.820 --> 10:43.210 It involves an elaborate trick staged by friends of both Milton 10:43.209 --> 10:46.069 and of Powell. So we learn here -- it's an 10:46.069 --> 10:49.389 amazing little window onto what the texture of this man's life 10:49.390 --> 10:52.330 was like -- that Milton was evidently in the habit, 10:52.330 --> 10:56.280 in the six weeks he lived alone as the abandoned husband, 10:56.278 --> 10:57.898 of visiting a friend. 10:57.899 --> 11:01.989 We don't know who this guy was, but according to Phillips -- 11:01.989 --> 11:05.589 this is the top of the right-hand column -- it was at 11:05.593 --> 11:09.963 Blackborough's house that the scheme to reunite the couple, 11:09.960 --> 11:12.100 to reunite them, was pulled off. 11:12.100 --> 11:17.110 I'm quoting here from Phillips: One time above the rest, 11:17.113 --> 11:19.983 he [John Milton] making his usual visit, 11:19.978 --> 11:22.768 the wife was ready in another room, 11:22.769 --> 11:25.719 and on a sudden he was surprised to see one whom he 11:25.722 --> 11:30.392 thought to have never seen more, making submission and begging 11:30.387 --> 11:33.317 pardon on her knees before him. 11:33.320 --> 11:38.480 He might probably at first make some show of aversion and 11:38.483 --> 11:42.133 rejection; but partly his own generous 11:42.130 --> 11:47.120 nature [this is the loving Phillips who so admires the 11:47.118 --> 11:49.388 uncle], more inclinable to 11:49.393 --> 11:52.883 reconciliation than to perseverance in anger and 11:52.875 --> 11:55.205 revenge, and partly the strong 11:55.213 --> 11:59.573 intercession of friends on both sides, soon brought him to an 11:59.567 --> 12:03.117 act of oblivion and a firm league of peace for the 12:03.123 --> 12:07.163 future. And Mary Powell and John Milton 12:07.164 --> 12:11.844 get back together again, and they have a child -- they 12:11.840 --> 12:13.870 have a few children. 12:13.870 --> 12:17.850 This scene bears an obvious resemblance to the initial 12:17.851 --> 12:20.481 entrance of Dalila into the poem, 12:20.480 --> 12:24.710 Samson Agonistes.Now there's no proof, 12:24.713 --> 12:29.563 of course, that Milton's Samson is a reworking of 12:29.564 --> 12:34.774 this biographical event in the stormy life that was Milton's 12:34.767 --> 12:38.027 domestic -- the stormy career [laughs] 12:38.031 --> 12:41.031 of Milton's domestic life. 12:41.029 --> 12:43.859 There's no proof that this event ever happened at all. 12:43.860 --> 12:47.060 My guess actually is that Phillips, who's writing this 12:47.060 --> 12:50.140 biographical narrative well after the publication of 12:50.140 --> 12:53.610 Samson Agonistes, is actually staging his 12:53.605 --> 12:57.705 account of this moment in Milton's life in some way as a 12:57.711 --> 13:02.341 reworking of the analogous moment from Samson Agonistes. 13:02.340 --> 13:05.390 I think he's giving us an imaginative engagement of 13:05.390 --> 13:08.550 Samson Agonistes, and it's probably 13:08.549 --> 13:12.739 because he wants to stave off what he knows will be the easy, 13:12.740 --> 13:16.620 obvious biographical reading that we will bring to Milton's 13:16.621 --> 13:19.701 poetic representation of a perfectly disastrous 13:19.699 --> 13:24.249 marriage.So I don't actually trust Phillips' biography here, 13:24.250 --> 13:28.480 but I want to linger on this passage for just another moment 13:28.481 --> 13:32.351 because I think it starts to illuminate one of the most 13:32.354 --> 13:35.514 puzzling aspects of Samson Agonistes. 13:35.509 --> 13:39.069 Look at Phillips' metaphor in the last sentence that I just 13:39.070 --> 13:41.770 quoted: Milton's "own generous nature… 13:41.769 --> 13:45.389 brought him to an act of oblivion and a firm league of 13:45.385 --> 13:49.715 peace for the future…" Phillips is alluding here to 13:49.721 --> 13:53.691 actual political events, political events that took 13:53.689 --> 13:58.609 place not in the 1640s -- when we know this reunion occurred -- 13:58.609 --> 14:01.069 but after the Restoration. 14:01.070 --> 14:05.720 The Act of Oblivion and the League of Peace are both actual 14:05.718 --> 14:10.448 political events that followed the restoration of the Stuart 14:10.448 --> 14:15.178 monarchy in 1660.So the royalists in 1660 passed the Act 14:15.177 --> 14:18.317 of Oblivion, and the Act of Oblivion 14:18.317 --> 14:22.227 prohibited any further punishment of Puritans who were 14:22.229 --> 14:26.509 seen to have behaved seditiously during the revolution. 14:26.509 --> 14:31.639 So in a gesture of magnanimity, the royalists were agreeing to 14:31.638 --> 14:34.468 be oblivious. They would forget -- they would 14:34.465 --> 14:37.035 forget the crimes of the Puritan parliamentarians. 14:37.039 --> 14:39.459 One of the most notable beneficiaries, 14:39.463 --> 14:43.003 in fact, of this Act of Oblivion was Milton himself, 14:43.000 --> 14:46.820 Milton whose life was, I think, really mercifully 14:46.815 --> 14:49.275 spared after the Restoration. 14:49.279 --> 14:53.429 He could easily have been prosecuted and executed for his 14:53.430 --> 14:57.360 composition of the regicide treatises.I think it's 14:57.358 --> 15:00.618 fascinating what Phillips is doing here. 15:00.620 --> 15:05.150 He situates the relation of husband and wife in the context 15:05.150 --> 15:09.140 of a political accord, a political agreement between 15:09.135 --> 15:11.005 two warring parties. 15:11.009 --> 15:12.759 In doing so, he's reproducing, 15:12.763 --> 15:16.153 I think, one of the strangest aspects, and it is a really 15:16.150 --> 15:18.240 strange aspect, of this poem: 15:18.238 --> 15:21.058 that's the remarkable conjunction of the 15:21.055 --> 15:25.245 representation of love and the representation of war -- the 15:25.245 --> 15:29.645 militaristic nature of sexual relations in Samson Agonistes 15:29.650 --> 15:33.620 and also the disturbingly sexual nature of political 15:33.623 --> 15:37.813 conflict as it's represented in Samson Agonistes. 15:37.812 --> 15:41.792 We'll pursue that in a moment.One of the curious 15:41.785 --> 15:46.045 elements of Phillips' account of Mary Powell's return is the 15:46.046 --> 15:49.886 implicit reversal, I think, of political 15:49.894 --> 15:52.874 identities here. Milton becomes the royalist 15:52.868 --> 15:56.908 passing the Act of Oblivion by way of forgiving Mary Powell; 15:56.909 --> 15:59.849 so these domestic enemies, Powell and Milton, 15:59.849 --> 16:03.589 have become -- it's as if they've become mirror images of 16:03.591 --> 16:06.921 one another. The moral alignment of their 16:06.924 --> 16:11.134 identities suddenly becomes, in this retelling of it, 16:11.129 --> 16:13.069 vague and indistinct. 16:13.070 --> 16:15.040 In a lot of ways, they're kind of pictured like 16:15.038 --> 16:17.218 Satan and the Son of God in Paradise Regained. 16:17.220 --> 16:20.850 Satan in so many ways seems to be the Son of God's evil 16:20.851 --> 16:23.441 twin. They're mirror images of one 16:23.441 --> 16:27.591 another, but obviously they represent utterly different 16:27.591 --> 16:30.231 things. The Son, you'll remember, 16:30.226 --> 16:33.576 in Paradise Regained only discovers his 16:33.584 --> 16:37.694 identity in that poem in opposition to Satan. 16:37.690 --> 16:41.760 This is something that the late poems of Milton are continually 16:41.764 --> 16:45.904 doing: they're exploring what we can think of as the dialectical 16:45.904 --> 16:47.814 nature of identification. 16:47.810 --> 16:51.600 Virtue cannot exist in a vacuum. 16:51.600 --> 16:57.090 In fact, I think for Milton, the knowledge of oneself can't 16:57.092 --> 16:59.462 come about in a vacuum. 16:59.460 --> 17:04.930 Any virtuous identity will inevitably be the product of 17:04.932 --> 17:08.582 some kind of antithetical process, 17:08.579 --> 17:12.019 of some sort of agonistic encounter with one's 17:12.019 --> 17:15.539 opposite.Now, the antithetical construction 17:15.536 --> 17:19.966 of the hero's identity is really central to this poem, 17:19.970 --> 17:23.620 Samson Agonistes, and I think keeping this in 17:23.622 --> 17:27.492 mind will help us try to make sense of some of its most 17:27.489 --> 17:29.279 troubling components. 17:29.279 --> 17:34.319 I think the components [laughs] of Samson Agonistes are 17:34.321 --> 17:39.531 as troubling as anything you'll find anywhere in the reading for 17:39.527 --> 17:43.197 this course. For me what's most troubling is 17:43.199 --> 17:47.669 this fact -- and this is an undeniable, unquestionable fact: 17:47.670 --> 17:52.140 Samson Agonistes gives us the intensest expression of 17:52.141 --> 17:56.311 misogyny that you will find in the Miltonic canon. 17:56.309 --> 17:59.379 That's because this poem goes further, I think, 17:59.376 --> 18:03.106 than any of Milton's other poems in narrowing the problem 18:03.109 --> 18:06.839 of identity -- and this is a problem that Milton has been 18:06.843 --> 18:11.043 concerned with all along -- but narrowing this larger problem of 18:11.043 --> 18:14.513 identity to the much more circumscribed and much more 18:14.509 --> 18:17.909 focused problem of sexual identity.The masculine 18:17.910 --> 18:22.310 hero's identity can only be established by contraries, 18:22.309 --> 18:25.159 by some sort of antithetical process. 18:25.160 --> 18:31.310 Samson can only identify himself as a hero by rejecting, 18:31.307 --> 18:35.777 by actively excluding, absolutely everything that's 18:35.784 --> 18:38.674 not masculine, rejecting everything that's not 18:38.669 --> 18:41.829 heroic, and rejecting everything that's 18:41.833 --> 18:45.183 not Samson. It becomes a kind of violent 18:45.184 --> 18:47.054 process of rejection. 18:47.049 --> 18:50.849 The character, Samson, is continually 18:50.847 --> 18:56.117 impelled, it seems, by a powerful need to expel all 18:56.122 --> 19:02.662 forms of sensual pleasure -- the types of pleasure that we know 19:02.663 --> 19:08.573 to be prized and sanctioned by Milton -- that Milton will 19:08.571 --> 19:15.641 identify in Samson Agonistes as types of femininity, 19:15.640 --> 19:18.790 and all of this has to be expelled by Samson from 19:18.788 --> 19:21.148 Samson.As you reread the poem, 19:21.150 --> 19:25.930 I think you'll be shocked -- if you haven't been shocked already 19:25.933 --> 19:30.793 -- by the violence of the really weirdly sexualized rhetoric that 19:30.792 --> 19:34.662 makes up so much of the metaphorical texture of this 19:34.664 --> 19:37.694 poem. I'll give you just one example 19:37.687 --> 19:40.237 -- there are innumerable examples. 19:40.240 --> 19:45.880 You may have noticed how this poem refers routinely to the 19:45.883 --> 19:50.243 Philistine enemies as "the uncircumcised." 19:50.240 --> 19:51.940 On some level this is to be expected. 19:51.940 --> 19:56.270 The Bible refers to heathens as the uncircumcised, 19:56.270 --> 20:00.070 and so this is conventional we could say; 20:00.069 --> 20:04.169 but Milton, of course, needlessly goes further than 20:04.166 --> 20:07.246 that. He actually refers to the 20:07.246 --> 20:12.856 enemies of the Hebrews as "foreskins": "With his sword of 20:12.859 --> 20:17.069 bone Samson slew a thousand foreskins." 20:17.069 --> 20:21.419 This is an unbelievable synecdoche, synecdoche being the 20:21.421 --> 20:25.141 rhetorical trope of using a part for a whole, 20:25.140 --> 20:28.430 and Milton, as far as I can tell, had absolutely no 20:28.431 --> 20:32.641 precedent whatsoever for the use of this particular synecdoche to 20:32.644 --> 20:37.134 refer to an entire people, the uncircumcised enemies of 20:37.126 --> 20:42.496 the Hebrews.There's a kind of sexual violence continually 20:42.496 --> 20:45.986 [laughs] welling up in the rhetoric used 20:45.987 --> 20:49.207 to describe political violence. 20:49.210 --> 20:51.720 Think about what that [laughs] implies. 20:51.720 --> 20:56.410 To slay a thousand foreskins is in some way to imagine a 20:56.406 --> 21:01.516 military victory as something like a mass circumcision or, 21:01.519 --> 21:05.399 symbolically, some type of mass castration. 21:05.400 --> 21:09.590 This is just one of many examples of a related kind of 21:09.585 --> 21:13.055 figurative pattern in Samson Agonistes. 21:13.059 --> 21:17.399 Political violence seems so continually to be figured in the 21:17.400 --> 21:21.190 literary rhetoric of this poem as a sexual cleansing, 21:21.190 --> 21:26.180 as a kind of purging -- the painful excision of something 21:26.179 --> 21:30.099 unclean, something presumably unnecessary, 21:30.099 --> 21:34.269 and something excessively sensual.Look, 21:34.271 --> 21:38.541 for example, at the way this text sexualizes 21:38.543 --> 21:43.793 the key event in Samson's life, which is of course, 21:43.785 --> 21:45.825 the loss of his hair. 21:45.829 --> 21:49.649 Look at Samson's account of the moment at which he lost his 21:49.646 --> 21:53.176 strength. This is page 564 in the 21:53.181 --> 21:58.071 Hughes, lines 529 and following. 21:58.069 --> 22:01.799 Now in the Book of Judges, Samson tells Delilah that the 22:01.796 --> 22:05.386 secret of his strength lies in his hair only after her 22:05.387 --> 22:07.417 continued verbal assaults. 22:07.420 --> 22:10.930 She pleads with him, she nags him -- she pleads with 22:10.931 --> 22:15.061 him unremittingly to tell her his secret, and finally he just 22:15.063 --> 22:18.343 relents. That's the scriptural story; 22:18.339 --> 22:21.869 but in Samson's account in Milton's story, 22:21.867 --> 22:26.937 Dalila doesn't harass Samson in to telling the secret -- she 22:26.943 --> 22:30.453 seduces him. Look at line 529. 22:30.450 --> 22:35.220 This is Samson talking, and here he describes himself 22:35.222 --> 22:39.502 as the cock of the walk here: Fearless of danger, 22:39.503 --> 22:43.043 like a petty God I walk'd about admir'd of all 22:43.037 --> 22:45.667 and dreaded On hostile ground, 22:45.668 --> 22:47.758 none daring my affront. 22:47.759 --> 22:51.689 Then swoll'n with pride into the snare I fell 22:51.690 --> 22:55.780 Of fair fallacious looks, venereal trains, 22:55.779 --> 22:59.759 Softn'd with pleasure and voluptuous life… 22:59.759 --> 23:04.509 Now, the voluptuous life that he's describing here in line 534 23:04.506 --> 23:06.136 is -- what is this? 23:06.140 --> 23:11.280 I think this is what we would have to name the life of 23:11.282 --> 23:13.912 marriage. The woman he's calling a 23:13.908 --> 23:17.678 deceitful concubine is actually, in Milton's telling of the 23:17.675 --> 23:19.175 story, Samson's wife, 23:19.179 --> 23:22.719 and there's a profound confusion about the cause of his 23:22.723 --> 23:26.713 weakness here. Was it the actual act of his 23:26.706 --> 23:32.026 head being shaved or simply the condition of marriage 23:32.030 --> 23:38.070 itself?Listen to Milton's figuration of the event of the 23:38.070 --> 23:42.860 cutting of his hair, and you tell me if this isn't 23:42.860 --> 23:45.480 unusually charged, even for Milton, 23:45.476 --> 23:49.396 with a pretty intense degree of sexual anxiety: 23:49.400 --> 23:53.260 At length to lay my head and hallow'd pledge 23:53.259 --> 23:57.479 Of all my strength in the lascivious lap 23:57.480 --> 24:00.270 Of a deceitful Concubine who shore me 24:00.269 --> 24:03.779 Like a tame Wether, all my precious 24:03.779 --> 24:08.229 fleece… You have an image here of 24:08.234 --> 24:13.394 sexual intercourse -- this has been suggested in a brilliant 24:13.389 --> 24:18.189 reading of this poem by John Guillory -- embedded in the 24:18.194 --> 24:23.004 image of Samson's head in Dalila's lascivious lap. 24:23.000 --> 24:26.980 Her violation of Samson, her cutting of his hair, 24:26.981 --> 24:31.711 seems almost inextricable here from a perfectly simple, 24:31.710 --> 24:35.100 seemingly -- it's never simple of course -- but an act of 24:35.096 --> 24:38.726 conjugal intercourse.But the figurative chain doesn't end 24:38.725 --> 24:41.025 there. It gets better or worse 24:41.033 --> 24:43.853 [laughs] depending on your perspective, 24:43.847 --> 24:47.917 because in this play marital intercourse is equated, 24:47.920 --> 24:51.600 at least figuratively, with castration -- the cutting 24:51.600 --> 24:55.140 off of the hallowed pledge of Samson's strength. 24:55.140 --> 24:59.770 Samson makes this explicit when he describes himself as "a tame 24:59.772 --> 25:01.682 Wether." "Well, what is a wether?" 25:01.680 --> 25:05.650 you ask. A wether is a castrated ram. 25:05.650 --> 25:09.520 The slayer of a thousand foreskins is himself slain, 25:09.516 --> 25:13.456 and part of the intensely violent figurative world of 25:13.459 --> 25:17.859 Samson Agonistes -- this is a world that continually 25:17.856 --> 25:22.326 identifies Dalila's betrayal as a kind of castration, 25:22.329 --> 25:26.199 and castration itself is nothing more than the male 25:26.196 --> 25:28.126 experience in marriage. 25:28.130 --> 25:34.570 A darker or more anxious reading of the relation between 25:34.573 --> 25:41.023 the sexes you'll have a difficult time finding.Let's 25:41.017 --> 25:45.467 look now at Dalila's own language. 25:45.470 --> 25:56.650 Turn to page 570 in the Hughes, around line 803. 25:56.650 --> 25:59.600 I think Dalila's language is in a lot of ways just as powerful, 25:59.600 --> 26:01.790 though it's configured a little differently. 26:01.789 --> 26:05.029 Much more than Samson, Dalila contradicts herself 26:05.028 --> 26:08.268 throughout this poem, and the contradictions have 26:08.266 --> 26:11.096 proven baffling to the poem's critics. 26:11.099 --> 26:14.339 One way of reading the character, Dalila, 26:14.341 --> 26:18.071 is to insist that her contradictions point out, 26:18.069 --> 26:20.419 emphasize, her mendacity. 26:20.420 --> 26:22.990 These are just simply lies that she's telling, 26:22.991 --> 26:25.911 and in a lot of ways, Milton does seem to be setting 26:25.905 --> 26:29.455 her up as a type of Satan, Satan who on Mount Niphates at 26:29.461 --> 26:32.721 the beginning of Book Four of Paradise Lost was 26:32.715 --> 26:35.715 continually contradicting himself.Critics have 26:35.724 --> 26:38.614 typically dismissed Dalila's explanations, 26:38.609 --> 26:42.429 her justifications of her behavior, with the assumption 26:42.432 --> 26:45.832 that Milton is simply trying to discredit her. 26:45.829 --> 26:50.439 It's not an unjustifiable assumption, and I think that's 26:50.441 --> 26:54.551 because the central contradiction of her discourse 26:54.549 --> 26:58.489 involves her use of two types of arguments. 26:58.490 --> 27:02.020 The first is an erotic, a romantic, argument and the 27:02.019 --> 27:05.409 second argument she deploys is a political one. 27:05.410 --> 27:08.990 Once again, it's this conjunction, the conjunction of 27:08.993 --> 27:12.853 the sexual and the political, that in this poem proves so 27:12.853 --> 27:14.993 unsettling and so puzzling. 27:14.990 --> 27:18.050 So let's look at Dalila's reasons for betraying her 27:18.048 --> 27:20.748 husband. This is her first argument, 27:20.754 --> 27:22.674 line 803. She's essentially saying, 27:22.670 --> 27:23.720 "I wanted you at home. 27:23.720 --> 27:24.860 You were always going out. 27:24.860 --> 27:28.360 You were working all the time": I knew that liberty 27:28.359 --> 27:31.359 Would draw thee forth to perilous enterprises, 27:31.359 --> 27:35.559 While I at home sate full of cares and fears 27:35.559 --> 27:39.279 Wailing thy absence in my widow'd bed; 27:39.279 --> 27:45.659 Here I should still enjoy thee day and night [here at home] 27:45.660 --> 27:48.720 Mine and Loves prisoner… 27:48.720 --> 27:52.740 "I unmanned you," she's saying, "because I loved you so much." 27:52.740 --> 27:56.870 That's the gist of the argument.Dalila's second 27:56.872 --> 28:01.602 argument is entirely different, and it's distinct from the 28:01.598 --> 28:05.518 complaint of the housewife that we just looked at. 28:05.519 --> 28:12.419 Look at the very bottom of page 571 -- this is line 857 and 28:12.422 --> 28:15.592 following. Here Dalila tells us that she 28:15.589 --> 28:18.229 had to betray Samson for political reasons; 28:18.230 --> 28:23.120 she had to do it to liberate her people, the Philistines: 28:23.120 --> 28:26.350 [T]he Priest Was not behind [Dalila says] 28:26.354 --> 28:29.794 but ever at my ear, Preaching how meritorious with 28:29.788 --> 28:32.068 the gods It would be to ensnare an 28:32.067 --> 28:36.477 irreligious Dishonorer of Dagon: what had I 28:36.480 --> 28:40.310 To oppose against such powerful arguments? 28:40.309 --> 28:43.789 Only my love of thee held long debate, 28:43.789 --> 28:46.369 And combated in silence all these reasons 28:46.369 --> 28:50.759 With hard contest: at length that grounded maxim 28:50.759 --> 28:52.599 So rife and celebrated in the mouths 28:52.600 --> 28:55.780 Of wisest men; that to the public good 28:55.779 --> 28:59.839 Private respects must yield, with grave authority 28:59.839 --> 29:03.219 Took full possession of me and prevail'd; 29:03.220 --> 29:08.650 Vertue, as I thought, truth, duty so enjoyning. 29:08.650 --> 29:13.300 And Dalila here gives us an extraordinary revelation: 29:13.295 --> 29:17.225 on some level, she turns out to be the mirror 29:17.225 --> 29:20.615 image of the great, heroic Samson. 29:20.619 --> 29:24.899 She plays the same role as the deliverer of her people -- she's 29:24.895 --> 29:29.025 the deliverer of the Philistines -- that Samson plays for the 29:29.032 --> 29:32.832 Hebrews. She defends the gentile god, 29:32.828 --> 29:36.008 Dagon, and Samson, her husband, 29:36.009 --> 29:40.779 defends the Hebrew god, Yahweh or Jehovah. 29:40.779 --> 29:43.469 They're in direct competition here. 29:43.470 --> 29:46.950 They're political opposites, and Milton is playing with 29:46.945 --> 29:50.935 something approaching a sort of cultural relativism by means of 29:50.935 --> 29:54.535 his representation of this competition.There is, 29:54.539 --> 29:57.779 however, a difference between them, and it's a difference we 29:57.775 --> 29:59.635 have no choice but to deal with. 29:59.640 --> 30:03.790 The difference between them is that Dalila, the wife, 30:03.787 --> 30:08.327 sacrifices private concerns for a public commitment to her 30:08.332 --> 30:10.132 people. In her words, 30:10.125 --> 30:13.785 she yields "private respects" to "the public good." 30:13.789 --> 30:17.829 This is precisely what Samson was supposed to do, 30:17.829 --> 30:21.279 but of course, this is exactly what Samson 30:21.279 --> 30:23.849 failed to do. So in a lot of ways, 30:23.848 --> 30:26.408 these two explanations, these two arguments of 30:26.410 --> 30:28.460 Dalila's, contradict one another. 30:28.460 --> 30:32.200 On the literal level of the plot the first motive, 30:32.196 --> 30:36.616 the motive appropriate for a wife, is revealed as a lie; 30:36.619 --> 30:40.999 but the presence of these two conflicting motives bespeaks 30:40.996 --> 30:44.376 more, I think, than the mere fact that Dalila 30:44.375 --> 30:49.055 is a liar or that in some way Dalila is a satanic figure who's 30:49.058 --> 30:51.898 just a very embodiment of evil. 30:51.900 --> 30:55.670 These two conflicting arguments really speak to Samson's deepest 30:55.674 --> 30:59.214 anxieties and perhaps the deepest anxieties of this poem, 30:59.210 --> 31:04.080 Samson Agonistes.The prospect of domestic pleasure is 31:04.078 --> 31:07.168 invariably a dangerous one for Samson, 31:07.170 --> 31:11.340 and that's because domestic success, success at home, 31:11.344 --> 31:15.844 for Samson is indistinguishable from political defeat. 31:15.839 --> 31:20.429 Dalila's two arguments are utterly -- it's as if inside of 31:20.433 --> 31:25.433 Samson's head they're utterly intermingled with one another, 31:25.430 --> 31:28.180 inextricable in Samson's psyche. 31:28.180 --> 31:32.570 In the severely restricted, circumscribed world of this 31:32.570 --> 31:36.580 hero's consciousness, domestic comfort and political 31:36.582 --> 31:41.012 failure turn out to be something like one and the same thing. 31:41.009 --> 31:46.029 In both instances the hero is seen to have relinquished his 31:46.028 --> 31:49.538 masculinity. He has undergone a humiliating 31:49.539 --> 31:53.979 defeat, and with this dual identification of Dalila as wife 31:53.984 --> 31:58.664 and as fierce warrior, you have a powerful sense of 31:58.660 --> 32:03.980 the fragility of masculine heroic consciousness as it's 32:03.982 --> 32:07.632 represented in this text.Okay. 32:07.630 --> 32:12.260 Turn now to Dalila's final offer to Samson. 32:12.259 --> 32:18.329 This is at line 920, the middle of the Hughes' page 32:18.331 --> 32:21.871 573. The most tempting and the most 32:21.872 --> 32:27.402 terrifying offer of Dalila's is her offer to nurse Samson -- 32:27.404 --> 32:31.304 he's old, he's blind -- to nurse him 32:31.300 --> 32:35.030 after his release from the prison. 32:35.030 --> 32:39.640 So Dalila tells Samson: I to the Lords will 32:39.640 --> 32:42.640 intercede, not doubting Thir favourable ear, 32:42.639 --> 32:45.809 that I may fetch thee From forth this loathsom 32:45.812 --> 32:49.402 prison-house to abide With me, where my redoubl'd 32:49.401 --> 32:53.211 love and care With nursing diligence, 32:53.205 --> 32:58.175 to me glad office, May ever tend about thee to old 32:58.178 --> 33:03.358 age… With her "nursing diligence," 33:03.362 --> 33:07.112 Dalila can be Samson's nurse. 33:07.109 --> 33:10.739 Better yet, she can function as Samson's mother -- I think 33:10.738 --> 33:14.368 that's essentially the gist of her argument -- since it is 33:14.366 --> 33:18.306 already claimed we know -- this was at line 633 -- he's claimed 33:18.312 --> 33:20.542 that he is a nursling of God. 33:20.539 --> 33:25.789 He's been struggling throughout this text to establish himself 33:25.786 --> 33:30.536 as a child not of human parents, certainly not of the perfectly 33:30.536 --> 33:33.456 sweet nature but the kind of addled dad of his, 33:33.460 --> 33:37.800 Manoa, but he's a child solely, exclusively of God 33:37.801 --> 33:43.381 himself.It's Dalila's offer to nurse Samson that elicits his 33:43.383 --> 33:46.833 most violent, most powerful, fit of rage. 33:46.830 --> 33:52.550 It's horrible. Look at line 952. 33:52.549 --> 33:57.859 Dalila says: "Let me approach at least, 33:57.863 --> 34:00.943 and touch thy hand." 34:00.940 --> 34:03.100 And Samson's response? 34:03.099 --> 34:11.029 Shocking: "Not for thy life, lest fierce remembrance wake / 34:11.030 --> 34:17.320 my sudden rage to tear thee joint by joint." 34:17.320 --> 34:23.110 Dalila's simple offer to touch Samson's hand has received 34:23.110 --> 34:26.630 [laughs] an extraordinarily extreme 34:26.625 --> 34:30.075 reaction. It's usually thought -- this is 34:30.075 --> 34:33.675 typically how we read this, I think -- that the fierce 34:33.675 --> 34:37.405 remembrance that will awaken Samson is his memory of his 34:37.410 --> 34:41.190 powerful desire for her, a memory that he has to 34:41.185 --> 34:45.575 forestall with this violent rejection.But I think the 34:45.581 --> 34:50.611 violence of this reaction surely exceeds the violence merely of a 34:50.606 --> 34:53.036 remembered sexual passion. 34:53.039 --> 34:57.979 This is too intense even for that, and I think it's possible 34:57.975 --> 35:02.655 to see in this reaction to Dalila's offer to nurse Samson 35:02.659 --> 35:06.339 another memory that has been suppressed. 35:06.340 --> 35:11.640 It's not just the remembrance of sexual love. 35:11.639 --> 35:15.549 Our best clue to this suppressed memory might come 35:15.550 --> 35:20.500 from that aspect of the story of Samson from the Book of Judges 35:20.499 --> 35:25.289 that has been most noticeably suppressed -- perhaps it's been 35:25.288 --> 35:28.798 circumcised -- from Milton's own poem. 35:28.800 --> 35:32.720 You'll remember from your reading of the poem that Milton 35:32.722 --> 35:37.142 is continually referring to the heavenly messenger who descended 35:37.135 --> 35:40.775 to prophecy Samson's greatness.This was happening 35:40.777 --> 35:44.837 well before Samson was actually born -- but to whom? 35:44.840 --> 35:48.130 To whom did this heavenly messenger speak? 35:48.130 --> 35:52.310 According to the Judges story, the angel spoke to Samson's 35:52.305 --> 35:56.695 mother, a character who figures prominently in the scriptural 35:56.700 --> 36:01.390 original of the story but who is very carefully excluded from the 36:01.389 --> 36:03.879 text of Samson Agonistes. 36:03.880 --> 36:08.400 I'm indebted for this point to a wonderful reading of this 36:08.399 --> 36:11.809 poem by -- I think she's a great Milton critic, 36:11.807 --> 36:14.027 her name is Stevie Davies. 36:14.030 --> 36:19.450 In Samson's violent rejection of Dalila, in his rejection of 36:19.447 --> 36:23.117 her offer to nurse him in his old age, 36:23.119 --> 36:28.699 Samson is rejecting on some level the very existence of his 36:28.703 --> 36:31.233 mother. He's denying the obvious fact 36:31.232 --> 36:34.732 that he had ever been mothered at all, which is another way, 36:34.730 --> 36:39.530 of course, of denying his humanity, of denying his status 36:39.534 --> 36:43.314 as a creature and his createdness.Now, 36:43.309 --> 36:48.469 it has been years now -- Milton has for years addressed himself 36:48.472 --> 36:53.222 to the attraction and also to the danger of the fantasy of 36:53.218 --> 36:55.548 heroic self-sufficiency. 36:55.550 --> 36:59.550 I'll just remind you of Book Five of Paradise Lost in 36:59.548 --> 37:03.138 which Milton explored the fantasy of self-creation, 37:03.139 --> 37:08.919 Satan's remarkable and of course implausible claim that he 37:08.917 --> 37:12.557 was self-begot. Satan needed to deny, 37:12.556 --> 37:17.026 he wanted to deny, God's agency in his creation. 37:17.030 --> 37:18.810 Now Samson's case is related but, of course, 37:18.806 --> 37:19.876 it's a little different. 37:19.880 --> 37:24.010 Samson wants more than anything to be a nursling of God, 37:24.006 --> 37:28.656 and it's as if he needs to deny that he had ever had any tie to 37:28.657 --> 37:33.157 the womb or to the breast of an earthly mother if he is to be 37:33.159 --> 37:36.009 the nursling exclusively of God. 37:36.010 --> 37:40.300 Of course, it's the fact, the existence of the mother, 37:40.296 --> 37:43.766 that is the thing that guarantees the truth, 37:43.773 --> 37:47.173 which is that he is inescapably human; 37:47.170 --> 37:50.580 but like us, Samson obviously owes a 37:50.576 --> 37:55.726 fundamental physical debt, a fundamental physiological 37:55.734 --> 37:59.744 debt and obligation, to a mother.There's a sense 37:59.735 --> 38:02.525 in this poem that the very existence of the mother, 38:02.530 --> 38:05.040 of any mother, seems to doom all of our 38:05.035 --> 38:08.195 attempts to think of ourselves as independent, 38:08.199 --> 38:11.239 as autonomous, and in any way self-sufficient 38:11.235 --> 38:15.645 beings, or to think of ourselves as beings whose primary debt can 38:15.652 --> 38:18.552 be exclusively to the heavenly father. 38:18.550 --> 38:24.100 Milton had been so bold in Paradise Regained to 38:24.095 --> 38:30.055 emphasize the thoroughgoing humanity of the Son of God. 38:30.059 --> 38:34.239 The Son of God in Paradise Regained had no more divine 38:34.242 --> 38:38.012 knowledge about his situation, it seemed, than we could 38:38.006 --> 38:39.536 possibly have had. 38:39.539 --> 38:43.359 It's in that [laughs] poem where Milton should have 38:43.362 --> 38:46.882 been anxious about the humanity of the hero, 38:46.880 --> 38:51.310 but all of that theological anxiety that should have existed 38:51.306 --> 38:55.426 in Paradise Regained seems to have been displaced 38:55.432 --> 38:58.662 onto Samson Agonistes.Turn to the 38:58.658 --> 39:01.808 very opening of Samson Agonistes, 39:01.809 --> 39:07.179 the exquisitely beautiful lines with which Milton begins 39:07.177 --> 39:12.997 this poem: "A little onward lend thy guiding hand / to these dark 39:13.000 --> 39:22.680 steps, a little further on…" 39:22.679 --> 39:28.749 Milton's poem opens with these beautiful lines addressed by 39:28.747 --> 39:33.457 Samson to someone, presumably, who's holding his 39:33.464 --> 39:38.894 hand, who is touching his hand and assisting his movements in 39:38.893 --> 39:43.783 his blindness -- Samson's wandering steps and slow. 39:43.780 --> 39:47.710 This sense of absolute dependence with which we begin 39:47.712 --> 39:49.832 this poem is overwhelming. 39:49.829 --> 39:52.849 It's often argued that Milton is suggesting here something 39:52.851 --> 39:55.131 like Samson's complete dependence on God. 39:55.130 --> 39:57.410 This is the nursling of God, after all. 39:57.409 --> 40:00.969 Samson's ultimate victory comes from his absolute submission to 40:00.965 --> 40:04.405 the will of God.This much we will learn at the end of the 40:04.406 --> 40:07.556 poem but the character -- it's a character in fact, 40:07.559 --> 40:11.859 it's not the Divinity -- the character leading Samson around 40:11.861 --> 40:15.071 at the opening of the play is never named. 40:15.070 --> 40:20.790 This character is never identified, and this mysterious 40:20.790 --> 40:25.240 omission certainly has to be purposeful; 40:25.239 --> 40:29.189 this is another clever argument forwarded by Stevie Davies. 40:29.190 --> 40:33.630 The unnamed character holding Samson's hand reminds us here of 40:33.630 --> 40:36.910 another unnamed character in the Samson story, 40:36.905 --> 40:39.885 and that's of course Samson's mother. 40:39.889 --> 40:44.359 Samson as the champion of the Hebrews is supposed to be able 40:44.364 --> 40:48.464 to submit himself utterly to the will of the Father, 40:48.460 --> 40:51.630 not Manoa but the heavenly Father, but the play reminds us 40:51.626 --> 40:54.896 overwhelmingly and continually that even the greatest heroes 40:54.903 --> 40:58.353 are subject -- and you can tell that Milton was an enormous fan 40:58.347 --> 41:01.097 of Shakespeare's tragedy, Coriolanus, 41:01.100 --> 41:05.520 which explores a lot of the same problems -- but even the 41:05.516 --> 41:09.926 greatest heroes are subject to other far less dignified forms 41:09.931 --> 41:13.771 of submission. That human figure most likely 41:13.766 --> 41:18.636 to lend a hand to unsteady steps is obviously the mother, 41:18.639 --> 41:24.179 the person in the child's life who touches the child's hand and 41:24.178 --> 41:27.498 serves as his first guide, first teacher.In 41:27.499 --> 41:29.749 Paradise Regained, after all that we went through 41:29.753 --> 41:34.243 in Paradise Regained, Milton was able to allow 41:34.238 --> 41:39.548 the Son to return home to his mother's house: 41:39.546 --> 41:45.696 "hee unobserv'd / Home to his Mother's house private 41:45.700 --> 41:49.710 return'd." The Son of God had successfully 41:49.714 --> 41:52.704 proven his son-ship to the heavenly Father, 41:52.700 --> 41:57.180 and he could thereby afford to return to the domestic space. 41:57.179 --> 42:01.269 Of course, it's a domestic space that had been utterly 42:01.269 --> 42:03.969 purged of any type of sensuality, 42:03.969 --> 42:06.959 but in Samson Agonistes the space, 42:06.956 --> 42:11.436 the place of maternal affection and domestic peace -- of just 42:11.435 --> 42:16.205 happiness in one's domestic life -- is continually threatening to 42:16.214 --> 42:20.614 contaminate the hero, and obviously this is a hero 42:20.608 --> 42:24.338 who's a lot less well adjusted, we could say, 42:24.344 --> 42:29.104 than the Son of God.That didn't make any sense but on 42:29.101 --> 42:31.771 some level, at least to me, it does. 42:31.769 --> 42:38.209 Heroism in this poem depends on the hero's ability to exclude, 42:38.208 --> 42:43.038 to expunge from his system, any attachment to the home, 42:43.043 --> 42:46.593 any dependency on an origin that could compete with the 42:46.591 --> 42:49.341 ultimate origin, which is of course that of the 42:49.340 --> 42:52.200 Heavenly Father. That's why this poem is 42:52.201 --> 42:57.361 continually voicing its terrible conviction in the necessary 42:57.361 --> 43:00.511 exclusion of all things feminine. 43:00.510 --> 43:03.890 It's in respect, I think, to this exclusion that 43:03.885 --> 43:07.545 we can best understand the horrible violence and the 43:07.548 --> 43:12.358 terrible misogyny charging the language of Samson Agonistes. 43:12.360 --> 43:16.590 This poem, this play that's not really a 43:16.593 --> 43:22.403 play, seems to be arguing for the necessary exclusion of the 43:22.402 --> 43:25.752 feminine from the hero's life. 43:25.750 --> 43:28.440 If that's true, if that is one of the ultimate 43:28.437 --> 43:31.357 arguments that Samson Agonistes is actually 43:31.363 --> 43:34.863 making, then I think we also have in 43:34.855 --> 43:40.925 this poem the pained and also the painful rhetoric -- we have 43:40.929 --> 43:46.699 the painful sense that Milton gives us of the cost of that 43:46.701 --> 43:51.041 exclusion. Here in Milton's final poem, 43:51.039 --> 43:57.179 we have an acknowledgment that the process whereby one becomes 43:57.183 --> 44:02.323 a Miltonic hero is potentially ruinous.Okay. 44:02.320 --> 44:04.000 That's it for today.