SOURCE: “Alfred de Vigny's ‘La Colère de Samson’ and Solar Myth,” in Nineteenth Century French Studies, Vol. 20, Nos. 3-4, Spring/Summer, 1992, pp. 478-81.

In the following essay, Duncan details Vigny's mythologizing of his personal feelings of feminine betrayal in the poem “La Colère de Samson.”

The Biblical account of the Nazarite, Samson, involves three levels of narrative. While it relates the amorous adventures of Samson and the treachery of Dalilah, its central reference is to the superhuman exploits of a hero whose life echoes the epic of Hercules in a neighboring culture. Additionally, Samson and Dalilah (as well as Hercules) behave as celestial deities anthropomorphized. Alfred de Vigny's “La Colère de Samson” virtually suppresses the elements of gigantism and the marvelous to focus on the human passion and pathos that mask a combat of male solar and female lunar principles.

Vigny's troubled liaison with the...