Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and the Complete Shorter Poems (Modern Library Classics)

Samson Agonistes is remarkably true to the mood and form of Greek drama, so if you savor Sophocles and Euripidies, this work will be among your favorites immediately. I was caught within the first few paragrpahs. Milton's deep tragic sense and sharpness with language enliven the sad but proud title character. Samson is a realist, and acknowledges that he has brought his fate upon himself by breaking his promise to God. He grieves his lowly position, after capture by the Philistines, not because it is so harsh for him but because he's admittedly squandered his one shot at divine purpose, the one announced by God at his birth. That's a lot for a guy in the Bible to live with. The only self-pity he permits is to lament the loss of his sight (his captors gouged his eyes out), and this makes one feel for Milton, who was blind by the time he wrote the poem. Samson is also darkly funny at times, as when he tells off Harapha, a Philistine big mouth who brags that he could have taken Samson in a fight back when Sam was in all his power. Samson, although now blind and shackled, retains the cocky confidence of the genuine bad-ass, and you know that he would have broken this punk's neck. I've always thought of Samson as a crude figure, essentially an early middle-eastern suicide bomber, but in Milton's hands, he doesn't seem it. During Samson's captivity, his father, Manoa, nearly succeeds in ransomimg his son, and an apologetic Delillah makes an appearance to plead for forgiveness and reunion. Neither of these events appear in Judges 13-16, but they give an entertaining tension to the story, and make Samson's ending feel all the more...tragic. You'll wish it could have turned out differently, but somehow be gratified with the ending anyway. There was no other way out for Samson; he's not like the rest of us.

These short poems are a fair representative of Milton's poetic genius as it developed. "Lycidas" and "Comus," his two great early poems, deserve their adulation. These two are so exuberant in a way we won't see even in his great later works.Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, while lacking the opulent exuberance of Paradise Lost, chart off with an experimental energy - be it the intellectual headiness and verve of Paradise Regained's focus on the victory over Temptation as the central moment of ultimate liberation, or Samson Agonistes's very experimental verse and energy as the great final work of a great poet's final days.

Very complete!

Milton's "Paradise Regained" is a work of art, where he represents core theological concepts through the characters of Satan and Jesus. While Satan was a heroic figure in Milton's previous book, he is a true villain in this one. Rather, Christ is portrayed as the hero. Although Milton's Puritan ideals leak through they do not distract from the core theology overmuch.

子供にも見せる事が出来て、感激です。親子で楽しめました。

excellent

Arrived on time with no problem apart from the post service failing to put it through my letterbox when it would clearly fit.