Samson Agonistes
John Milton's Samson Agonistes (published 1671, with Paradise Regained) is a tragedy on the ancient Greek model, written not for the stage but to be read. It dramatizes the last day of the blind, captive Samson among the Philistines—his despair, the visits of his father Manoa, of Dalila, and of the giant Harapha, and his final, catastrophic triumph in the temple of Dagon. Prefaced by Milton's own influential essay on tragedy, the poem is at once a profound personal meditation, by the blind poet in defeat, on suffering, guilt, and renewed purpose, and a supreme English imitation of Greek dramatic form.
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