- Title Pages
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- Note on the Text and List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
-
1 Milton’s Spots -
2 Critical Mass -
3 ‘A Fine Paradisaical Notion’ -
4 ‘In the Dun Air Sublime’ -
5 Milton’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy -
6 John Dennis, John Locke, and the Sublimation of Revolt -
7 ‘To Secure Our Freedom’ -
8 Milton Modulated for Handel’s Music -
9 John Dryden Meets, Rhymes, and Says Farewell to John Milton -
10 ‘I Still Deny’d, Much Pleas’d to Hear You Sue’ -
11 Angel Bodies to Whig Souls -
12 Yet Once More -
13 Milton’s Pope -
14 The Circling Hours -
15 ‘In Power of Others, Never in My Own’ -
16 Milton and the Restoration Literae -
17 Milton, Newton, and the Implications of Arianism -
18 Friday as Fit Help -
19 Early Modern Marriage in a Secular Age -
20 Haak’s Milton -
21 Miltonic Texts and European Politics, 1674–1682 -
22 Purging the Visual Nerve -
23 Some Thoughts on Periodization -
24 Milton, the Long Restoration, and Pope’s Iliad -
25 Paradise Lost and English Mock Heroic -
26 Milton and the People -
27 Paradise Lost in the Long Restoration, 1660–1742 -
28 Raphael’s Condescension -
29 ‘His Ears Now Were Eyes to Him’ - Bibliography
- Index
‘In Power of Others, Never in My Own’
‘In Power of Others, Never in My Own’
The Meaning of Slavery in Samson Agonistes
- Chapter:
- (p.284) 15 ‘In Power of Others, Never in My Own’
- Source:
- Milton in the Long Restoration
- Author(s):
Martin Dzelzainis
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
While much has been written on Milton and liberty, especially in relation to republicanism, its antonym—slavery—has attracted little attention, even in the case of Samson Agonistes. This chapter supplies a genuinely historical account of what type of slave Samson is, and what kind of prison the prison in Gaza is, drawing on the Roman materials in Milton’s Latin projects of the 1650s—the defences, De doctrina Christiana, and the Thesaurus. However, despite the effort Milton puts into the physical realization of Samson’s condition as a slave, to Samson himself this is not true slavery, which is actually an inward condition. For Samson to free himself from inward slavery is to become the slave of God instead.
Keywords: Samson Agonistes, Samson, slavery, freedom, liberty, Salmasius, defences, De Doctrina Christiana
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- Title Pages
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- Note on the Text and List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
-
1 Milton’s Spots -
2 Critical Mass -
3 ‘A Fine Paradisaical Notion’ -
4 ‘In the Dun Air Sublime’ -
5 Milton’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy -
6 John Dennis, John Locke, and the Sublimation of Revolt -
7 ‘To Secure Our Freedom’ -
8 Milton Modulated for Handel’s Music -
9 John Dryden Meets, Rhymes, and Says Farewell to John Milton -
10 ‘I Still Deny’d, Much Pleas’d to Hear You Sue’ -
11 Angel Bodies to Whig Souls -
12 Yet Once More -
13 Milton’s Pope -
14 The Circling Hours -
15 ‘In Power of Others, Never in My Own’ -
16 Milton and the Restoration Literae -
17 Milton, Newton, and the Implications of Arianism -
18 Friday as Fit Help -
19 Early Modern Marriage in a Secular Age -
20 Haak’s Milton -
21 Miltonic Texts and European Politics, 1674–1682 -
22 Purging the Visual Nerve -
23 Some Thoughts on Periodization -
24 Milton, the Long Restoration, and Pope’s Iliad -
25 Paradise Lost and English Mock Heroic -
26 Milton and the People -
27 Paradise Lost in the Long Restoration, 1660–1742 -
28 Raphael’s Condescension -
29 ‘His Ears Now Were Eyes to Him’ - Bibliography
- Index
