John Milton's Samson Agonistes
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 7 April 2021
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps |
| 0:21.2 | it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream |
| 0:26.1 | van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.3 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Rana Mitter. |
| 0:39.3 | Today on the Arts and Ideas podcast, we're bringing the temple crashing down |
| 0:43.3 | as we find out about John Milton's great poem, Samson Agonistis, |
| 0:47.3 | and handles adaptation of it for his oratorio, Samson. |
| 0:51.3 | And we'll hear more about how a contemporary poet replies to Milton's thoughts on blindness. |
| 0:56.0 | That's all after this word. |
| 0:58.0 | Sound of Gaming, the monthly show from BBC Radio 3, which opens up the incredible world of gaming music. |
| 1:10.0 | I'm Louise Blaine and every month I'll be featuring some of the very best gaming scores, |
| 1:16.8 | offering insights into how the music works with the gameplay, talking to composers about how they set about creating their scores. |
| 1:24.9 | I've classic tracks, I've also got the latest new releases. Subscribe to Sound |
| 1:31.5 | of Gaming on BBC Sounds. Hello, you may be feeling all passion spent after the past year, |
| 1:39.9 | but we're planning to get it racing for you again on today's free thinking. Because that phrase |
| 1:44.9 | all passion spent comes from the very last line of one of the great poems of English literature, |
| 1:50.2 | which first appeared 350 years ago. And that's Samson Agonistis, Samson the Champion, or |
| 1:56.3 | Samson the Wrestler, by John Milton. Milton was deeply committed to the politics of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, |
| 2:02.8 | and his writing was shaped by his increasing blindness, |
| 2:06.0 | a theme which he frequently returns to in his work. |
| 2:09.5 | Well, that's one factor that attracted him to the biblical story of Samson, |
| 2:13.8 | the blind hero of the Israelites, captured by the Philistines, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.