Decaris, Albert c. 1939 Samson Agonistes Suite

 

Art For Sale presents limited edition engravings by Albert Decaris from Samson Agonistes by poet John Milton. Drawing on the story of Samson from the Old Testament, Judges 13–16, each engraving is a dramatization of the story starting at Judges 16:23. The drama starts as Samson has been captured by the Philistines, had his hair, the container of his strength, cut off and his eyes cut out.

 

Samson is "Blind among enemies, O worse than chains" (line 66).Samson undergoes despair when he loses God’s favor in the form of his strength. Milton’s dramatic poem, however, begins the story of Samson after his downfall—after he has yielded his God-entrusted secret to Dalila (Delilah), suffered blindness, and become a captive of the Philistines.

 

Tormented by anguish over his captivity, Samson is depressed by the realization that he, the prospective liberator of the Israelites, is now a prisoner, blind and powerless in the hands of his enemies. The focus of Milton’s dramatic poem is ultimately on Samson’s regenerative process, an inner struggle beset by torment, by the anxiety that God has rejected him, and by his failure as the would-be liberator of his people.

 

Samson’s discourse manifests an upward trajectory, through atonement and toward regeneration, which culminates in the climactic action at the temple of Dagon where Samson, again chosen by God, vindicates himself. In his searching for a way to return to being true to God and to serve his will, Samson is restored and again is in God’s grace and able to serve God.

 

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