John Milton (1608–1674)
Paradise Regain’ is a shorter epic of four books and was intended by Milton as a kind of follow-up to Paradise Lost. It retells the story of Satan’s temptation of Christ in the wilderness. It was first published in 1671 together in the same volume as Samson Agonistes, a neoclassical tragedy on the Biblical subject of Samson and his ‘Traytress’ wife, Delilah. Milton treats of the hero’s final days, before the climactic temple-suicide that destroys Samson himself and many of his enemies. Although its main influence is Greek rather than Senecan, Samson Agonistes is a closet drama, meaning that it was intended for reading rather than performance.