

Samson Agonistes
Author: John Milton
Narrator: Iain Glen, and cast
Unabridged: 1 hr 51 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Naxos
Published: 01/06/2014
Categories: Fiction, Poetry, European Poetry
Author: John Milton
Narrator: Iain Glen, and cast
Unabridged: 1 hr 51 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Naxos
Published: 01/06/2014
Categories: Fiction, Poetry, European Poetry
John Milton was born in London, England, on December 9, 1608, into a middle-class family. He was educated at St. Paul's School, then at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he began to write poetry in Latin, Italian, and English, while preparing to enter the clergy.
After university, however, he abandoned his plans to join the priesthood and spent the next six years in his father's country home in Buckinghamshire studying and preparing for a career as a poet. He gained proficiency in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Italian, and obtained a familiarity with Old English and Dutch as well.
In 1642, Milton returned from a trip into the countryside with a sixteen-year-old bride, Mary Powell. Even though they were estranged for most of their marriage, she bore him three daughters and a son before her death in 1652. Milton later married twice more.
During the English Civil War, Milton championed the cause of the Puritans and Oliver Cromwell, and wrote a series of pamphlets advocating radical political topics, including the morality of divorce, the freedom of the press, populism, and sanctioned regicide. Milton served as secretary for foreign languages in Cromwell's government, composing official statements defending the Commonwealth. During this time, Milton steadily lost his eyesight and was completely blind by 1651. He continued his duties, however, with the aid of Andrew Marvell and other assistants.
After the Restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, Milton was arrested as a defender of the Commonwealth, fined, and soon released. He lived the rest of his life in seclusion in the country, completing the blank-verse epic poem Paradise Lost, which is widely regarded as his masterpiece and one of the greatest epic poems in world literature. Milton also produced a sequel, Paradise Regained, and the tragedy Samson Agonistes. Milton oversaw the printing of a second edition of Paradise Lost in 1674, which included an explanation of "why the poem rhymes not," clarifying his use of blank verse, along with introductory notes by Marvell. He died shortly afterwards, on November 8, 1674, in Buckinghamshire, England.
I recommend this unfairly neglected work to all lovers of memoir and fans of confessional poetry. Sure, it is a biblically-themed work in classical form, but it is also an intense experiment in personal expression, for here John Milton explores the fate of a hero much like himself: the blind Samson,......more
An imaginative retelling of Samson's last day. Some brilliant moments, all in all very worthwhile. My favorite part was Samson's reflection on his own blindness as the worst part of his miserable condition; knowing all the while that Milton is giving voice to his own anguish over losing his sight.......more
i liked this. he had Samson talking more trash than a gangster rapper!......more
The poetry is wonderful, as usual with Milton, but the tone of the entire work seems more whiny and petulant than anything else. The characterization of Samson in this tragedy is clearly the result of Milton's personal frustrations with his own life, and it seems probable that he wrote it as a form......more
I came across it again (having last read it forty years ago or so) while listening to Handel's wonderful opera, "Samson". I was thinking to myself "and who wrote the stupendous libretto" until the penny dropped! Like Parzival, Milton's Samson and Milton himself of course can only portray so vividly d......more