From Shadowy Types To Truth (1965)

Abstract

In recent years critical interest in Samson Agonistes has shifted from the question whether the play has a middle to the question of the play’s theme and its relation to the other works of Milton’s maturity. The terms Hebraism and Hellenism, which once figured so prominently in discussions of the theme, have all but disappeared, and it is now fashionable to speak of this classical tragedy with an Old Testament folk hero as Christian. Its spirit is ‘religious and Christian’; it is ‘a classical tragedy with a Christian theme and outlook’; it is a ‘remarkable blend of Greek form with Christian content’; Samson himself is ‘an heroic figure as conspicuously modern, Christian, and Miltonic as it is Hebraic’; Samson Agonistes is really Christus Agonistes, and the agony of Samson is a ‘surrogate for the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass’.¹