DALILA AND SAMSON'S DESPAIR

DALILA AND SAMSON'S DESPAIR

The episode in which Samson encounters Dalila has been generally regarded as the pivot of Milton's Samson Agonistes by those critics who discern a process of spiritual growth and change in the hero's experience in the play. John Spencer Hill, for instance, says explicitly that •the encounter with Dalila succeeds in 'raising [Samson] out of the apathy, hopelessness, and despair into which Manoa's visit had thown him' (165). A. S. P. Woodhouse holds that right before the encounter Samson 'reaches his lowest depth of despair' ( 452). Don Cameron Allen also thinks that the hero 'reaches the bottom level of despair' (87) at the end of his interview with his father. While Woodhouse argues that the encounter demonstrates the completeness of Samson's repentance (453), Allen discerns that Samson's 'uxorious weakness, the mother of much of his despair, goes with Dalila's exit' (90). Joseph H. Summers, though he does not single out the Dalila episode, holds that while the Chorus and Manoa bring 'challenges and temptations' and 'make Samson more determinedly wish for death,' Dalila and Harapha ironically effect the revival of his self-respect' they both retire with some fear for their physical safety from a determined, fearless, and strengthened man' (159). Burton J. Weber also has a similar opinion though he thinks that the Chorus and Manoa bring doubts instead of challenges and temptations (236). Paired with the idea of the regenerating function of the Dalila episode is the opinion that the Harapha episode attests Samson's transformation caused by this encounter with Dalila. The general idea of the same critics is that at the end of the Harapha episode Samson has thoroughly renewed his energy and recovered his godly confidence.