An evaluation of the autobiographical interpretation of Samson Agonistes

Certainly, every reader of Samson Agonistes who is at all familiar with the circumstances of Milton\u27s life, his thought, and the history of his times has been attracted by obvious parallels between \u27the poet and certain aspects or his dramatic creation, and he may understandably assume that the presentation or the sufferings of Samson constitute intentional, hidden autobiography. To assume even the obvious, however, is something too blithely done. A little research into this area of Miltoniana will reveal to him that scholarly opinion concerning Samson Agonistes and autobiography is greatly varied and that some scholars are inclined not only to deny the personal content but to place the date of the composition of the drama as early as the middle of the l640\u27s. Of course, this dating in itself bespeaks a non autobiographical interpretation because most of the pertinent events and conditions in the life of Milton are of post-Restoration times. The reader may then reconsider the parities upon which he has based his autobiographical theory, and he will most likely find that they are aspects which are perfectly in keeping with the traditional Biblical character of Samson-blind, surrounded by his evil captors, and betrayed by his countryman and his wife.He will then realize that before he can turn his opinion of autobiography into a respectable thesis, he must make a scrupulous, verse-by-verse analysis or the poem to discover whether or not there are any instances of strong similarity between Milton and his own Samson which do not easily apply to the Biblical or hermeneutic Samson. Only upon such instances (termed pure autobiography in this paper) can be founded the conclusion that Samson Agonistes is an autobiographically significant work. Such has been my progress in the study of this issue. My thesis is that while the poem is by no means a full allegorical representation of Milton\u27s life or of any particular epoch in his life, it does contain conscious and palpable nuances and overtones which ere topical and pertinent to Milton\u27s life, his philosophy end ideals, and the history of his times. After considering the possible sources for Milton\u27s treatment of the Samson story (Chapter I) and a summary of the representative scholarly opinion concerning the autobiographical interpretation and the date of composition (Chapter I I), l have comprehended two major purposes in this paper: First, I have pointed out and given an exposition of every instance of autobiographical significance that I have been able to discover in the. drama. (Chapter III) Finally, l have given an evaluation of the nature and extent of this subjective incorporation. (Chapters III and IV

The Area Distribution of Solar Magnetic Bright Points

Magnetic Bright Points (MBPs) are among the smallest observable objects on the solar photosphere. A combination of G-band observations and numerical simulations is used to determine their area distribution. An automatic detection algorithm, employing 1-dimensional intensity profiling, is utilized to identify these structures in the observed and simulated datasets. Both distributions peak at an area of $\approx$45000 km$^2$, with a sharp decrease towards smaller areas. The distributions conform with log-normal statistics, which suggests that flux fragmentation dominates over flux convergence. Radiative magneto-convection simulations indicate an independence in the MBP area distribution for differing magnetic flux densities. The most commonly occurring bright point size corresponds to the typical width of intergranular lanes.Comment: Astrophysical Journal, accepte

An Unsplit, Cell-Centered Godunov Method for Ideal MHD

We present a second-order Godunov algorithm for multidimensional, ideal MHD. Our algorithm is based on the unsplit formulation of Colella (J. Comput. Phys. vol. 87, 1990), with all of the primary dependent variables centered at the same location. To properly represent the divergence-free condition of the magnetic fields, we apply a discrete projection to the intermediate values of the field at cell faces, and apply a filter to the primary dependent variables at the end of each time step. We test the method against a suite of linear and nonlinear tests to ascertain accuracy and stability of the scheme under a variety of conditions. The test suite includes rotated planar linear waves, MHD shock tube problems, low-beta flux tubes, and a magnetized rotor problem. For all of these cases, we observe that the algorithm is second-order accurate for smooth solutions, converges to the correct weak solution for problems involving shocks, and exhibits no evidence of instability or loss of accuracy due to the possible presence of non-solenoidal fields.Comment: 37 Pages, 9 Figures, submitted to Journal of Computational Physic

Mississippi\u27s New Equitable Distribution Rules: The Ferguson Guidelines and Valuation`

Mississippi Focu

Personality changes of habitual spectacle wearers as they change to contact lens wear

Seventeen habitual full-time spectacle wearers who requested contact lenses at the Pacific University College o f Optometry Clinic (PUCOC) were administred the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) before receiving their contact lenses. This experimental group achieved full time contact lens wear. Eight months after the initial testing the subjects were readministered the CPI. A control group o f 16 PUCOC patients who had not requested contact lenses was chosen to match the experimental group by age range and sex and underwent the same CPI test-retest program. Student t-tests indicated that neither the experimental nor the control group demonstrated any statistically significant personality changes on retest. Results of questionnaires accompanying the CPI on retest indicated that 70.6% felt more attractive wearing contact lenses than spectacles, but only 29.4% felt that contact lenses had made a significant change in their social lives

Ayer & Crockett Dry Goods Advertising Broadside

Large-format broadside advertisement promoting Ayer & Crockett\u27s Dry Goods located at 32 and 34 Main Street, Bangor, Maine, ca. 1840.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainebicentennial/1103/thumbnail.jp