Milton and the Jews

Noting references to the Biblical figure of Samson in post-9/11 polemics about terrorism, Feisal G. Mohamed observes: “It should come as no surprise, then, that the current political climate sparks controversy over Samson Agonistes, inspiring especially those critics who have always found in Milton's Samson a portrait of blind animosity.” Thus, in a move that could have been borrowed from Coleridge's characterization of Iago as a “motiveless malignancy,” the figure of Samson – Biblical and Miltonic – is called upon to reduce terrorism to something like an impulsive act, one that discourages us from examining the complex conditions that produce it. For Mohamed, such efforts are typified by a now infamous essay written by John Carey for a special issue of the Times Literary Supplement dedicated to the first-year anniversary of 9/11. In that essay, Carey asserts, “The similarities between the Biblical Samson and the hijackers are obvious. Like them he destroys many innocent victims, whose lives, hopes, and loves are all quite unknown to him personally. He is, in effect, a suicide bomber, and like the suicide bombers he believes that his massacre is an expression of God's will.”