Samson Agonistes - edizione con copertina flessibile

MILTON SAMSON AGONISTES EDITED WITH I N T R O D U C T I O N AND NOTES BY JOHN CHURTON COLLINS - 1883 - INTRODUCTION. -- THE literary life of Milton may be divided into four distinct periods. The first extends from about 1624 to 1632, during which time he produced his juvenile poems it begins with the paraphrases of the 104th and 136th Psalms, and it ends chronologically with the composition of the Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester. The second period extends from 1632 to 1638, and comprises the poems written during his residence at Horton. The third extends from 1638 to 1662, and is the period of the production of a few of the Sonnets and of almost all his prose-writings. The fourth extends from 166a to his death in 1674, and between these dates appeared Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. Each of these periods has its own essential characteristics each has its own history. We are here concerned only with the last. At its commencement Milton was in his fifty-fourth year. For nearly a quarter of a century he had been in the van of contemporary history. He had abandoned poetry and polite letters. He had dedicated himself entirely to the service of his country and of his cause. Controversy after controversy had engaged him, and when he was not actually in the arena the duties of a responsible public post had leit him little leisure for loftier avocations. The death of Cromwell in September, 1658, ended this period of prosperous activity. In little more than a year the wreck of the Puritans was complete. The Restoration found Milton under an accumulation of misfortunes such as have rarely pressed simultaneously oo one man. Every object for which he had lived andlaboured had been defeated. The Republic was in ruins the principles which he had vindicated with so much passionate eloquence, and which were dearer to him than his own hearts blood, had lost all their life and efficacy. Puritanism had become a by-word its shrines had been overturned its gospel was a jest, and the Kingdom of the Saints was the prey of an obscene and impious rabble. For a while his life was in jeopardy. Discontent and misery reigned in his home. Pecuniary loses had crippled his fortune, and the terrible afliction which had befallen him in 1652 was now aggravated by gout. In the midst of these calamities he composed Paradise Lost, which was published in the autumn of 1667. A little more than three yean afterwards appeared together Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. The volume was a small octavo of 220 pages, and the titlepage runs thus Paradise Repind. A Poem in ZVBooRs. To which is added Samson Agonistes. The Author John Milton. London, Printed by j. M. forJohn Starkey at the Mitre in Fleet Street, near Temple Bar. It was entered on the registers of the Stationers Company on the 20th of September, 1670, and it was licensed, as a note on the fly-leaf at the beginning informs us, on the 2nd of July, 1670. The proof-sheets had evidently been very imperfectly revised, the printing is slovenly, and the punctuation singularly loose and careless. The Samson Agonistes has a separate title-page, and that title-page we have reprinted in its proper place. The date of the composition of this drama it is now impossible to ascertain. It may have been written side by side with Paradise Lost, or side by side with Paradise Regained. From internal evidence we should be inclined toassign it to the later date...