Language and the Seal of Silence in “Samson Agonistes”

Abstract

ABSTRACT Milton's preoccupation with the nature of language in Samson Agonistes becomes itself a major vehicle for describing psychic processes. He examines language nondiscursively through metaphors relating to words, hearing, seeing, sounds, and silence. By means of these metaphors, he portrays the nature of psychic disintegration and reintegration. He dramatizes this recovery of self in an internalized landscape rather than in the externalized metaphors of time and space found in Paradise Lost. In the various verbal encounters between the characters, who are themselves preoccupied with words, the different levels of discourse symbolize different levels of reality. In the transformation of Samson, the metaphor of hearing rises to prime importance, antecedent even to the ever-important Miltonic metaphor of light. Only after Samson works through the problem of self-definition on a verbal level does he attain insight. When he finally listens with his inner ear, there is no more language, but there is illumination. Paradoxically Milton shows the limitations and the creative possibilities of language for conveying the nature of nonverbal experiences.