Milton's Samson: Genre and Reader

FAIN: FT-13546-77

Robert A. Kimbrough
University of Wisconsin, Madison (Madison, WI 53715-1218)

To continue work on a manuscript which covers Milton s Samson Agonistes in an affective reading. Affective criticism approaches individual works in terms of the response of a theoretical "informed reader" with a "literary competence," which demands thorough acquaintance with relevant genres for a given work. PI approaches Samson through the specific form of Renaissance Biblical drama rather than from pre-Christian classical drama or from non-Biblical Renaissance drama.