Free Thinking7 Apr 2021

John Milton's Samson Agonistes

Blind, and with his hair cut and his strength shorn - in Milton's dramtic poem Samson has already been betrayed by Delilah. It goes on to explore ideas about violence, revenge and tragedy. Published on May 29th 1671 alongside Paradise Regained, Milton's notes show that he started thinking of ideas for this work 30 years earlier. In 1741 Handel finished writing his version - a three act oratorio called Samson. Rana Mitter is joined by New Generation Thinker Islam Issa, music expert Professor Suzanne Aspden, poet Nuala Watt and classics expert Simon Goldhill to look at the poetic language of Samson Agonistes, the politics it was reflecting, the imagery of blindness and what Handel took from Milton's writing.

Dr Islam Issa from Birmingham City University is a New Generation Thinker and author of Milton in the Arab-Muslim and Milton in Translation and Digital Milton. You can hear him presenting this recent Radio 3 Sunday Feature on The Balcony from Shakespeare to these Covid times https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0972325

Professor Suzanne Aspden from the University of Oxford is the author of The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel’s Operatic Stage and co-editor of the Cambridge Opera Journal.

Professor Simon Goldhill from the University of Cambridge is the author of How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today and Love, Sex & Tragedy

Dr Nuala Watt has written on the role of partial sight in poetics. Her poems have appeared in Magma and Gutter and her work is included in the anthology Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (2017).

Producer: Ruth Watts

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