XVIII.—The Dramatic Structure of Samson Agonistes

Extract

It is a familiar maxim in criticism that the strength of a work of art is measured not by its weakest part, as a chain is by its weakest link, but by its strongest. Marlowe's Doctor Faustus is judged by its magnificent speeches and its awe-inspiring close, not by the fooleries of Mephistopheles. Paradise Lost is supremely great despite the long-winded discourses of the later books. It sometimes happens, however, that the excellence that gives a work its position in literature lifts its actual faults into the category of virtues. The average reader is so carried away by the supreme art of the great passages that he does not notice the blemishes. The critic instead of recognizing faults as spots on the sun refuses even to admit that they exist, contending that what are regarded as faults are really special beauties. Usually in time these matters are adjusted so that the man and the work are set into their proper niches. When a piece of literature has stood the test of time for two hundred and fifty years and only once has a considerable voice been raised in unfavorable criticism, and that over one hundred and fifty years ago, he would seem to be a very daring critic who would say that the lone voice was right and all the others wrong. Especially so when the work so criticized is Milton's Samson Agonistes. One takes courage, however, from the fact that the first critic who presumed to find fault with this play was Dr. Johnson.