In William Shakespeare's play Hamlet and in John Milton's play Samson Agonistes, both title characters undergo an intellectual metamorphosis, each becoming more and more aware of the power of his mind as he learns to master it. Despite a difference of almost 50 years between the writing of each of these plays, Hamelet being composed in 1601 and Samson Agonistes not being completed until circa 1646-1648, both reflect a preoccupation of the 17^th century shared by both authors, the emergence of the mind and the human reason.

Hamlet, while already a scholar and a philosopher, must, in the course of his plot to revenge the death of his father, constantly reassure himself that his mind has not erred. He must verify that the apparition of his father's ghost was a "spirit of health" and not a "goblin damned" designed to lead him to an inopportune demise. He must be certain that the revenge that he exacts on his father-in-law will suit his crime and not "this same villain send / To heaven".

Samson, on the other hand, must also awaken his mind, but in his case his mind has been dormant all his life and this thus presents him with a more diffficult task than that of Hamlet. Samson had always relied on his brute physical strength to rescue him from dangerous situations whereas Hamlet had the more well-rounded formation of a Renaissance man. Oddly enough, it is Samson who seems to have been more successful at the end of the tragedy in that he does not unwittingly take his mother nor his friend with him to his grave.

The first instance in which Hamlet demonstrates an awakening of his mind is in Scene 1 when he must decide whether or not to trust the ghost which appears before him. He is forced to question it’s nature and motivations and does so by telling it, "Be thy intents wicked, or charitable, / Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, / That I will speak to thee." After having decided that the ghost's story could be true, Hamlet acknowledges the importance of clearing his mind of all distractions in order to focus uniquely on the task at hand of confirming the ghost's account of events:

In today's modern society of meditation, Hamlet's process of focusing is common practice in many fields, such as sports for example, but in the 17th century could have been considered as a important mesure of discipline to master in the newly developing Renaissance world that began to place more emphasis on the importance of human reason and a clear, undistracted mind.

Early in the play, Hamlet begins a process of self-doubt ("am I a coward?"), which is an important and necessary part of the awakening of one's mind for this questioning forces one's mind to know why every circumstance is as it is. In the same sililoquay, he also directly summons up the forces of his brain ("About, my brains"), and reasons about the psychology of the human mind:

It is by this reasoning that he devises the plan which will ultimately reveal to him the king's guilt ("the play's the thing / Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king"), and, at the same time, confirm the honest and real nature of his father's spirit.

Hamlet does, however, strongly doubt the value of the mind and wonders whether on not the mind's need for confirmation oppresses action:

He has noticed that those who spend too much time contemplating an action eventually convince themselves not to do it. He chooses nonetheless to take the course of reason in that from this point on he exagerates his feigned madness, as in his raving outburst against Ophilia directly afterwards, in order to divert the king's suspicion away from his plan for revenge.

Having confirmed his suspicions of the king's guilt, Hamlet must then exact his revenge. It is at this point that his alert mind intervenes and prevents him from making the mistake of sending the king to heaven by unpatiently murdering him while in the midst of prayer:

Were he not so alert, he could have made an error which would have nullified the justice of his revenge against Claudius and thus not fulfilled his duty to his father. It is much more fitting punishment to send the king to hell by arranging to execute him in a moment of sin:

By choosing not to kill the king in the vulnerable act of praying, it is a case where "reason panders will"; however, Hamlet does not falter but simply invokes the power of reason to decide on a more advantageous moment.

Hamlet then becomes impatient that he must temper his actions until reason indicates the appropriate moment and he ponders extensively this question:

He thinks that because man is endowed with such extraordinary capacities for reason that he should thus naturally be supposed to act without hesitation based on the results of this flawless reason. He doesn't want to acknowledge that prudence is sometimes necessary before action in order to ensure that the human mind has not erred. He then continues:

His ruminations lead Hamlet to the conclusion that it is in fact unwise to act too suddenly wihtout questioning one's motivation because the mind tends to give one cowardly answers that one wants to hear in order to avoid taking an unpleasant action. This recognition of the need to question the answers that one's mind produces leads him to the conclusion that his plan to kill Claudius is a right action because even after much time has ensued and having doubted this course of action, he is still convinced subconsciously that it is the most reasonable thing to do:

In fact, he is so convinced that his mind has led him to make the right choice to revenge his father's death that he banishes the rational part of his mind and summons the animal part to return ("O, from this time forth, / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!"), because he is sure that his mind has led him as far as possible and that his reasoning and doubting process is now complete.

Finally, Hamlet reveals to Horatio at the end of the play the ingenious method by which he escaped from the trap of death laid out for him and creatively turned it around on the accomplices Rosencrantz and Guilderstern by rewriting the letter containing the order of execution that they were carrying.

The process of Hamlet's awakening of his mind is a difficult one in that he is constantly forced to doubt all that his senses tell him and every conclusion that his reason makes from them. He is sometimes unsure whether or not he ought to trust himself, but this is a normal occurance because his mind is being reborn and still must prove to him its steadfast nature.

In Samson Agonistes, there are several direct and indirect references to the awakening of Samson's mind and to his trust in his self as opposed to placing his fate in the hands of his god.

The first sign in the play that indicates that Samson will undergo an awakening is his own assertion "But what is strength without a double share / Of wisdom?". This early moment in the play shortly after the imposition of his blindness is Samson's epiphany. He realizes that brute, physical strength, even if god-given, is not as valuable as he once believed it to be because it must be tempered by wisdom which he did not have. He still despairs, however, and doesn't yet possess confidence in the power of his mind as he says, "For inward light alas / Puts forth no visual beam". Soonafter, the Chorus makes reference to another of Isreal's heroes, Jephtha, "who by argument, / Not worse than by his shield and spear / Defended Isreal", thus indicating to Samson that fighting with one's mind is just as noble as fight with one's physical strength.

Having become aware of the importance of his mind, Samson, his "conscience" now partially awake, is forced "to suffer the slings and arrows" which his mind has received from realisation that he has brought his own troubles onto himself. He laments:

Samson is in agony because his thoughts of his failure are torturing him even more than the physical torture of having his eyes poked out.

When confronted with his traitorous wife Dalila, Samson manages to refute systematically all of her reasons for betraying him as well as resist her attempts to seduce him. (l 871-902, 819-842) He declares "How cunningly the sorceress displays / Her own trangressions, to upbraid me mine!", showing that he is aware that she is trying to trick him into believing that she was innocent. He adds, "Where once I have been caught; I know thy trains / ... So much of Adders wisdom I have learn't." so that Dalia realizes that she can no longer manipulate him because his mind is active and able to see her trickery.

Samson, next attacked by the guard Harapha, defends himself by saying that he had never used trickery or magic in his previous battles but was endowed with strength from his god (l 1139-1155) and then goes on to challenge Harapha to prove that his god Dagon is stronger than the Isrealite god, which Harapha is unable to do. Samson thus sends him away defeated by his unability to reason as well as Samson.

The Chorus acknowledges Samson's achievements by pointing out to him that he has been "Labouring thy mind / More then the working day thy hands, ". His work is not finished though, as Samson must now confront the Officer. He is successful in this challenge and puts forth a reasonable argument on the basis of his religious origins (l 1319-1332) that prevent him from consenting to the Philistine's request for entertainment. Samson adds a strong comment in his defense to the argument when he says:

He proves here beyond any doubt that his mind has fully awoken and that he is now ready for any mental task or challenge placed before him.

The final proof of the succes of Samson's transformation comes when he devises the plan with which he will exact revenge and eliminate his enemies the Philistines. He states to the Chorus:

He has developed the capacity to reason well enough to outsmart his enemies and to defeat them with a carefully considered plan rather than with his overwhelming strength which only plays a secondary role in his plan.

There is a small difference between Hamlet and Samson in terms of their mental awakening. Hamlet's quest for his mind is a one of confirmation whereas Samson's is one of outright discovery. Hamlet's mind was already developed in certain areas before his meeting with his father's ghost. His mind was awake academically and thus already capable of functioning to a certain degree. From the beginning he doubted the ghost until his mind was able to confirm the truth of its assertion. His awakening was a search for proof to substaniate what he already suspected. Samson, on the other hand, was totally unaware that his mind harboured any power at all when he was first confronted with the reality that it was the only tool now available to him. He had to first pass though a stage in which he learned to value his mind; Hamlet already knew that his mind was capable of achieving great things. Only after he accepted the value of his mind did Samson begin to permit himself to let his mind awaken and grow. From this point onward his quest then begins to ressemble that of Hamlet and the parrallel between the two tragic heros becomes more apparent.

Hamlet and Samson undergo a similar metamorphosis in relation to the fact that both must learn to develop and to trust their mind rather than rely on a supernatural power to guide them. In Hamlet's case, this supernatural being is the ghost of his father which comes to give him the noble cause of revenging his foul death. For Samson, the cause is for the honour of his god which must be proven to be stronger and more right than the Philistine god Dagon. In the end, both succeed in awakening their minds, and while their deaths may be considered tragic, from a 17^th century point of view, and even from today's perspcetive, they are heros because they learned to put their trust in themselves as rational human beings.