『비망록』과 삼손의 자살 문제

Abstract

Samson's final act of pulling down the temple both on the Philistines and on himself has two problematic implications of suicide and revenge which has bewildered the ‘traditional’ and ‘revisionist’ scholars of Milton. Both parties, however, seem to take his suicide as a matter of fact and to put much emphasis on whether or not they can justify his cruel, indiscriminate, and massacring revenge. So, in this paper, the problem of his suicide is deeply explored: Does Samson deliberately kills himself? What is Milton's viewpoint on suicide? And How does he apply this idea to the poem?Milton took two notes on self-destruction from Inferno and Arcadia in The Commonplace Book to show what kind of suicide is a really unpardonable sin. He contends in the mouth of Philoclea that killing oneself is but a false color of true courage,proceeding rather from a fear of a further evil either of torment or shame. In Christian Doctrine, though Milton argues that self-destructors as well as murderers are to be placed in those who shall not live to the end of their life-span due to their treason to Providence, he divides it into two kinds; “ordinary” and “extraordinary.” Extraordinary Providence means God alone is able to invert the order of things which He Himself has appointed. In other words, God gives the power of producing some “miracle” to whomsoever he may appoint. In short, many Milton scholars reflecting on the problem of Samson's suicidal revenge have thought that he was a violent and despicable person and that Milton thought so too. But, as far as Samson's self-destructive death is concerned, Milton must have been careful to make his death not a felonious suicide but an “accident” in the “Argument” of the poem. It can be said that Milton considers him to be a really valiant freedom fighter moved by a special intimation with God to carry out his extraordinary Providence; a miracle.