Samson Agonistes

John Kinsella’s poetic and intertextual reworking of John Milton’s dramatic poem, Samson Agonistes, confirms Milton as one of the many influences in Kinsella’s poetic output. His fascination with Milton’s “tale of conflicted belief, values and desires” is stated at the outset in the ‘Argument’, and in what follows, Kinsella echoes many of Milton’s themes as he explores how the cyborg Samson – both a symbol of uncontrolled violence and a pacifist peacemaker – must come to terms with his participation in his own powerlessness and incarceration. Stephen Chinna’s introduction and Tim Cribb’s afterword are invaluable in setting the central dramatisation in context.