John T Shawcross is Professor of English, Emeritus, University of Kentucky.

One of the few scholars qualified to write magisterially about any aspect of Milton's life and work succinctly interprets anew his dramatic poem modestly and convincingly.

• The world of "Samson Agonistes"; uncertainty and the text; the dramatic work and its reading; Samson - God's champion, a type, or individual?; Dalila - seductress or wife?; politics in the destabilized text; biographical intrusions; the uncertainties of irony; a hermeneutics of the text; "Samson Agonistes" and consistencies of belief.

John T Shawcross is Professor of English, Emeritus, University of Kentucky.

One of the few scholars qualified to write magisterially about any aspect of Milton's life and work succinctly interprets anew his dramatic poem modestly and convincingly.

• The world of "Samson Agonistes"; uncertainty and the text; the dramatic work and its reading; Samson - God's champion, a type, or individual?; Dalila - seductress or wife?; politics in the destabilized text; biographical intrusions; the uncertainties of irony; a hermeneutics of the text; "Samson Agonistes" and consistencies of belief.

John T Shawcross is Professor of English, Emeritus, University of Kentucky.

One of the few scholars qualified to write magisterially about any aspect of Milton's life and work succinctly interprets anew his dramatic poem modestly and convincingly.

• The world of "Samson Agonistes"; uncertainty and the text; the dramatic work and its reading; Samson - God's champion, a type, or individual?; Dalila - seductress or wife?; politics in the destabilized text; biographical intrusions; the uncertainties of irony; a hermeneutics of the text; "Samson Agonistes" and consistencies of belief.