Cultural References To Samson - Literature

Literature

• In the 14th century in Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", in the Monk's tale, Samson is described.

• In 1656, the Spanish crypto-Jew, Antonio Enríquez Gómez, published Sansón Nazareno: Poema heróico, a Spanish-language heroic epic version of the Samson story.

• In 1671, John Milton made him the sympathetic hero of his blank verse tragedy Samson Agonistes.

• In 1724, Moshe Chaim Luzzatto wrote the first Hebrew play ever written on the subject of Samson.

• Benjamin Franklin is credited with the witty quatrain: "Jack, eating rotten cheese, did say, / Like Samson I my thousands slay: / I vow, quoth Roger, so you do, / And with the self-same weapon too."

• In 1847, Charlotte Brontë compared Rochester to Samson in Jane Eyre: "The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson."

• In 1926, Vladimir Jabotinsky published his historical novel, Samson (see "Israeli culture" above for details), which earned him a credit on the 1949 Hollywood movie Samson and Delilah. 2

• In 1952, Ralph Ellison made reference to Samson in his novel Invisible Man saying, "Whoever else I was, I was no Samson. I had no desire to destroy myself even if it destroyed the machine; I wanted freedom, not destruction."

• In 1971 the Marvel Comics character Doc Samson debuted in The Incredible Hulk. He is a psychiatrist who is exposed to gamma radiation that causes his hair to grow long and green. Also, like the real Samson, his strength depends on the length of his hair.

• In 2006, David Grossman's novel Lion's Honey: The Myth of Samson was published.

• In 2006, David Maine published his novel The Book of Samson, the third of his Biblical series of novels which also includes Fallen and The Preservationist.

• Carol Ann Duffy's poetry anthology The World's Wife contains a poem entitled "Delilah", which sympathetically follows the eponymous character in the Biblical story.

• In the Image comics series Invincible an African-American character with great strength is named Black Samson.

• In William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair, the characters Becky Sharp and Rawdon Crawley are compared to Samson and Delilah.

• In 2002, Mario Ruiz and Jerry Novick published a graphic novel version called Samson: Judge of Israel through the American Bible Society.

• In 2011, Ginger Garrett published her novel, Desired: The Untold Story of Samson and Delilah, which tells the story of Samson from the perspective of the three main women in his life: his mother, his wife, and Delilah.

• In 2012, Justin Reed published a graphic novel, "Samson: Blessed Savior of Israel," which draws from a wide range of resources in previous scholarship and literature on Samson to create a fresh perspective on the Samson story.