Samson Agonistes

Abstract This chapter examines Samson Agonistes in depth through Milton’s audacious and largely unprecedented approaches to sustained free verse, mainly in the choruses. The particular mode of its free verse is analysed in detail; its striking freedoms are set against such emerging forms of freer verse as are found in Greek tragedy, in the Latin tragedy of Seneca, in the Neo-Latin tragedies of the Renaissance, and in vernacular writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The deliberate and innovative anti-lyricism of Milton’s choruses and free verse is explored. The contrast between the audacious verse and the humdrum human qualities of the Chorus provokes a critical rereading of the work and especially of the catastrophe, challenging the pious orthodoxy of traditional readings. The poem is seen neither as a celebration of the hero’s triumphant restoration to faith and divine favour—as in traditional readings—nor as a critique of Samson himself, as in some recent studies, and more as a probing and questioning of providence, asking: does the end justify the means? Untypically, Milton is even prepared to leave matters unresolved.