1. Samson Agonistes (‘Samson the champion’) is a tragic closet drama by John Milton. It appeared with the publication of Milton's __________?
a) Defensio Secunda
b) Paradise Regained
c) 19th Sonnet
d) Paradise Lost
springline- Correct option: b) Paradise Regained
2. Generally thought that Samson Agonistes was begun around the same time as Paradise Regained but was completed after the larger work, possibly very close to the date of publishing, but there is no certainty. Milton began plotting various subjects for tragedies in a notebook created in the______?
a) 1640s
b) 1630s
c) 1650s
d) 1660s
springline- Correct option: a) 1640s
3. The title of Samson Agonistes, Milton chose emphasises Samson as a warrior or an athlete, and the play was included with Paradise Regained and printed on 29 May 1671 by _______?
a) Elizabeth Sauer
b) Thomas Carew
c) John Starkey
d) Gerard Manley
springline- Correct option: c) John Starkey
4. Samson Agonistes; It is uncertain as to when the work was composed, which leaves the possibility that it was an early work that was filled with Milton's ideas about the English Civil War or it was a later work that incorporates his despair over the _______?
a) French Revolution
b) Renaissance
c) Reformation
d) Restoration
springline- Correct option: d) Restoration
5. Samson Agonistes draws on the story of Samson from the Old Testament, Judges 13–16; in fact it is a dramatisation of the story starting at Judges 16:23. In the Hebrew Bible, Samson was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the _______?
a) Book of Jungle
b) Book of Judges
c) Book of Arguments
d) Book of Judgment
springline- Correct option: b) Book of Judges
6. Samson Agonistes; Samson has been captured by the Philistines, had his hair, the container of his strength, cut off and his eyes cut out. Samson is ‘Blind among enemies, O worse than chains’ (line 66). The drama starts in medias res. A narrative work beginning in medias res opens in the________?
a) Beginning of the plot
b) End of the plot
c) midst of the plot
d) Crises of the plot
springline- Correct option: c) midst of the plot
7. Samson Agonist; Near the beginning of the play, Samson humbles himself before God by admitting that his power is not his own: ‘God, when he gave me strength, to show withal / How slight the gift was, hung it in my hair’ it was a in line of __________?
a) lines 60-61
b) lines 54-55
c) lines 55-57
d) lines 58-59
springline- Correct option: d) lines 58-59
8. Samson Agonistes; Who asks for Samson to ‘let me approach at least, and touch thy hand’ (line 951), and Samson responds, ‘Not for thy life, lest fierce remembrance wake / My sudden rage to tear thee joint by joint’?
a) God
b) Dalila
c) Manoa
d) Chorus
springline- Correct option: b) Dalila
9. Milton does describe Samson's past accomplishments when he says ‘thou art famed / To have wrought such wonders with an ass’s jaw’ (lines 1094–5). Who discusses how God grants individuals with the power to free his people from their bonds, especially through violent ?
a) Samson
b) Milton
c) Chorus
d) Dalila
springline- Correct option: c) Chorus
10.Samson is granted the power to destroy the temple and kill all of the Philistines along with himself. However, this event does not take place on stage but is told through others. The last two hundred and fifty lines describe the_________?
a) Desire of Dalila
b) Violent act
c) Betray god
d) Revenge act
springline- Correct option: b) Violent act
11.Samson Agonistes combines Greek tragedy with Hebrew Scripture, which alters both forms. Milton believed that the Bible was better in its classical forms than those written by the __________?
a) Greek and Romans
b) Greek and Hebrew
c) Hebrew and Roman
d) Latin and Greek
springline- Correct option: a) Greek and Romans
12.Samson Agonistes; Milton continues, ‘Of the style and uniformity, and that commonly called the plot, whether intricate or explicit... they only will best judge who are not unacquainted with Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three poets unequaled yet by any, and the best rule to all who endeavor to write _____?
a) Biblical
b) Religious
c) Tragedy
d) Spiritual
springline- Correct option: c) Tragedy
13.In Samson Agonistes; Acts of violence are an important theme within Samson Agonistes as the play attempts to deal with revenge and the destruction of God's enemies. Who posits that ‘the drama is a work of violence to its very core. It extols violence. Indeed, it exults in violence ?
a) Elizabeth Sauer
b) Michael Lieb
c) Robert Burns
d) Gordon Teskey
springline- Correct option: b) Michael Lieb
14.David Loewenstein remarks that ‘the destruction and vengeance depicted in Samson Agonistes, then, dramatizes a kind of awesome religious terror’. Who describes the plot of the work when he says, ‘delirious violence of the hero of Samson Agonistes, who cancels the Philistine hallucination of a unified and harmonious world’?
a) Gordon Teskey
b) Michael Lieb
c) Matthew Arnold
d) Elizabeth Sauer
springline- Correct option: a) Gordon Teskey
15. The play itself suggests the horror within the actions through descriptive phrases, including ‘evil news’ (line 538), ‘this so horrid spectacle’ (line 1542), ‘the place of horror’ (line 1550) and ‘the sad event’ (line 1551). Although Samson is the hero and he causes the _______?
a) Betray
b) Tragedy
c) Desire
d) Violence
springline- Correct option: d) Violence
16. Who points out that ‘Milton devotes nearly twice as many lines to the Chorus’ reactions in the denouement than to the Messenger's description of the catastrophe in order to deemphasize spectacle and performance and instead to highlight the interior drama while encouraging active interpretation of the reported events’ ?
a) T.S.Eliot
b) Elizabeth Sauer
c) Gordon Teskey
d) Andrew Marvell
springline- Correct option: b) Elizabeth Sauer
17. Samson Agonistes; Women, and men's desire for women, are connected to idolatry against God and the idea that there is no possibility for the sacred within the bonds of marital love. The play, focusing around the betrayal of Samson at the hands of Dalila. In this play, Who produces a negative portrayal of love and love's effects ?
a) Chorus
b) Manoa
c) Samson
d) Dalila
springline- Correct option: d) Dalila
18. Samson Agonistes; Samson, who is both holy and desirous of Dalila, is seduced into betraying the source of his strength, and thus betrays God. He is emasculated, through blindness, because of his ________?
a) Violence
b) Sexual desires
c) Betray of god
d) Sin
springline- Correct option: b) Sexual desires
19. In this play of Samson Agonistes; Samson's argument against Dalila is to discuss the proper role of a wife but also the superiority of men. The depiction of Dalila, and women, is similar to that in Milton's _______?
a) tragedy
b) blindness
c) divorce tracts
d) past fall
springline- Correct option: c) divorce tracts
20. Samson Agonistes; A wife is supposed to help a husband, and the husband, regardless of the status of the woman, is supposed to have the superior status. In blaming Dalila, he rationalises his actions and removes blame from himself, which is similar to Paradise Lost, Who to attempts in Paradise Lost after the fall ?
a) Adam
b) Eve
c) Mankind
d) Chorus
springline- Correct option: a) Adam
21. In this play, Samson develops through the play and Dalila reveals that she is concerned only with her status among her people. This places Dalila in a different role from Milton's Eve. Instead, she is an emasculating force and represents Samson's _____?
a) Betray
b) Past failings
c) Violence
d) desires
springline- Correct option: b) Past failings
22. Samson Agonistes; Samson undergoes despair when he loses God's favour in the form of his strength. As blindness overtook Milton, it becomes a major trope in Samson Agonistes, and is seen also in Paradise Lost (3.22–55) and his ______?
a) 19th Sonnet
b) Lycidas
c) Comus
d) On His Blindness
springline- Correct option: a) 19th Sonnet
23. Many scholars have written about the impact of Milton's increasing blindness on his works. This recurrence of blindness came after Milton temporarily gave up the Commonwealth government and his poetry to work for________?
a) Samuel Johnson
b) Alexander Pope
c) John Dryden
d) Oliver Cromwell
springline- Correct option: d) Oliver Cromwell
24. Milton continued this service even though his eyesight was failing and he knew that he was hastening his own blindness. The correlation is significant to the Agonistes plot: Milton describes Samson as being ‘Eyeless in Gaza’, a phrase that has become the most quoted line of Agonistes. Novelist Aldous Huxley used it as the title for his novel Eyeless in Gaza in _____?
a) 1936
b) 1937
c) 1945
d) 1944
springline- Correct option: a) 1936
25. Milton believes that by mixing comedy and tragedy together, others have made the latter insignificant; he intends to remedy that with Samson Agonistes. Though the poem was inspired in meter and structure by ancient Greek drama, Milton does not intend for his poem to be performed. He provides a summary of the plot of the poem in a section titled ______?
a) The Arrangement
b) The Re Argument
c) The Argument
d) The Rearrangement
springline- Correct option: c) The Argument
26. samson Agonistes; The play begins with a soliloquy from Samson. He is imprisoned, but free from hard labor for the day because the Philistines, his captors, are celebrating a festival in honor of _____?
a) Daphnephoria
b) Ascension
c) Epiphany
d) Dagon
springline- Correct option: d) Dagon
27. Samson Agonistes; Manoa, Samson’s father, arrives and is stunned to see his son in his current state. Samson explains to his father that it is his own fault for telling Dalila the secret to his strength. They talk about the festival to Dagon, which is even bigger this year; Samson says that is because the Philistines are also celebrating his ____?
a) Success
b) defeat
c) pride
d) blindness
springline- Correct option: b) defeat
28. Who does not want Samson to stay in prison and hopes God will restore his sight, since he allowed Samson to get his strength back and also who plans to bribe an official to release Samson ?
a) Messenger
b) Harapha of Gath
c) Manoa
d) Dalila
springline- Correct option: c) Manoa
29. In this play Samson’s one of the visitor is Harapha of Gath. Harapha who wants to meet the warrior who might have been a worthy opponent in battle. Samson challenges Harapha to a fight. Harapha claims that Samson’s strength is sourced from magic, but Samson insists that it is from the Israelite’s God. Harapha who is a ______?
a) god of spirit
b) spirit
c) Ghost
d) giant
springline- Correct option: d) giant
30. Samson Agonistes; Who praises Samson’s vengeance and says the Philistines brought their own destruction because they were intoxicated by both wine and idolatry. They were blind on the inside and also Who adds, while Samson’s inner sight was virtuous ?
a) Dalila
b) Chorus
c) God
d) Manoa
springline- Correct option: b) Chorus