22-) English Literature
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John
Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (born April 1, 1647, Ditchley Manor House,
Oxfordshire, Eng.—died July 26, 1680, Woodstock, Eng.), court wit and poet who
helped establish English satiric poetry . He was an English poet and courtier
of King Charles II's Restoration court, who reacted against the "spiritual
authoritarianism" of the Puritan era. Rochester embodied this new era, and
he became as well known for his rakish lifestyle as for his poetry, although
the two were often interlinked .He died as a result of a sexually transmitted
infection at the age of 33.
Rochester
was described by his contemporary Andrew Marvell as "the best English
satirist", and he is generally considered to be the most considerable poet
and the most learned among the Restoration wits. His poetry was widely censored
during the Victorian era, but enjoyed a revival from the 1920s onwards, with
reappraisals from noted literary figures such as Graham Greene and Ezra Pound.
The critic Vivian de Sola Pinto linked Rochester's libertinism to Hobbesian
materialism.
During
his lifetime Rochester was best known for A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind
and it remains among his best-known works today.
Life
Upbringing
and teens
John
Wilmot was born at Ditchley House in Oxfordshire on 1 April 1647. His father,
Henry, Viscount Wilmot, was created Earl of Rochester in 1652 for his military
service to Charles II during the King's exile under the Commonwealth. Paul
Davis describes Henry as "a Cavalier legend, a dashing bon vivant and
war-hero who single-handedly engineered the future Charles II's escape to the
Continent (including the famous concealment in an oak tree) after the
disastrous battle of Worcester in 1651". His mother, Anne St. John, was a
strong-willed Puritan from a noble Wiltshire family.
From
the age of seven, Rochester was privately tutored, two years later attending
the grammar school in nearby Burford . His father died in 1658, and John Wilmot
inherited the title of the Earl of Rochester in April of that year. In January
1660, Rochester was admitted as a Fellow commoner to Wadham College, Oxford, a
new and comparatively poor college. Whilst there, it is said, the 13-year-old
"grew debauched". In September 1661 he was awarded an honorary M.A.
by the newly elected Chancellor of the university, Edward Hyde, Earl of
Clarendon, a family friend.
As
an act of gratitude towards the son of Henry Wilmot, Charles II conferred on
Rochester an annual pension of £500. In November 1661 Charles sent Rochester on
a three year Grand Tour of France and Italy, and appointed the physician Andrew
Balfour as his governor. This exposed him to an unusual degree to European
(especially French) writing and thought. In 1664 Rochester returned to London,
and made his formal début at the Restoration court on Christmas Day.
It
has been suggested by a number of scholars that the King took a paternal role
in Rochester's life. Charles II suggested a marriage between Rochester and the
wealthy heiress Elizabeth Malet . Her relatives opposed marriage to the
impoverished Rochester, who conspired with his mother to abduct the young
Countess. Samuel Pepys described the attempted abduction in his diary on 28 May
1665:
Thence
to my Lady Sandwich's, where, to my shame, I had not been a great while before.
Here, [I told] her a story of my Lord Rochester's running away on Friday night
last with Mrs. Mallett, the great beauty and fortune of the North, who had
supped at White Hall with Mrs. Stewart, and was going home to her lodgings with
her grandfather, my Lord Haly, by coach; and was at Charing Cross seized on by
both horse and foot men, and forcibly taken from him, and put into a coach with
six horses, and two women provided to receive her, and carried away. Upon
immediate pursuit, my Lord of Rochester (for whom the King had spoke to the
lady often, but with no successe [sic]) was taken at Uxbridge; but the lady is
not yet heard of, and the King mighty angry, and the Lord sent to the Tower.
18-year-old
Rochester spent three weeks in the Tower, and was released only after he wrote
a penitent apology to the King.
Rochester
attempted to redeem himself by volunteering for the navy in the Second Dutch
War in the winter of 1665, serving under the Earl of Sandwich. His courage at
the Battle of Vågen, serving on board the ship of Thomas Teddeman , made him a
war hero. Pleased with his conduct, Charles appointed Rochester a Gentleman of
the Bedchamber in March 1666, which granted him prime lodgings in Whitehall and
a pension of £1,000 a year. The role encompassed, one week in every four, Rochester
helping the King to dress and undress, serve his meals when dining in private,
and sleeping at the foot of the King's bed. In the summer of 1666, Rochester
returned to sea, serving aboard HMS Victory under Edward Spragge. He again
showed extraordinary courage in battle, including rowing between vessels under
heavy cannon fire, to deliver Spragge's messages around the fleet.
Wilmot
succeeded his father to the earldom in 1658, and he received his M.A. at Oxford
in 1661. Charles II, probably out of gratitude to the 1st earl, who had helped
him to escape after the Battle of Worcester (1651), gave the young earl an
annual pension and appointed Sir Andrew Balfour, a Scottish physician, as his
tutor. They travelled on the Continent for three years until 1664.
On
his return, as a leader of the court wits, Rochester became known as one of the
wildest debauchees at the Restoration court, the hero of numerous escapades,
and the lover of various mistresses. Among them was the actress Elizabeth
Barry, whom he is said to have trained for the stage, and an heiress, Elizabeth
Malet. He volunteered for the navy and served with distinction in the war
against the Dutch (1665–67). In 1667 he married Elizabeth Malet and was
appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber to the king. In 1673 John Dryden
dedicated to Rochester his comedy Marriage A-la-Mode in complimentary terms,
acknowledging his help in writing it.
Upon
returning from sea, Rochester resumed his courtship of Elizabeth Malet. Defying
her family's wishes, Malet eloped with Rochester again in January 1667, and
they were married at the Knightsbridge chapel. They had four children: Lady
Anne Wilmot (1669–1703), Charles Wilmot (1671–1681), Lady Elizabeth Wilmot
(1674–1757) and Lady Malet Wilmot (1676–1708/1709).
In
October 1667, the monarch granted Rochester special licence to enter the House
of Lords early, despite being seven months underage.[3] The act was an attempt
by the King to bolster his number of supporters among the Lords.
Teenage
actress Nell Gwyn "almost certainly" took him as her lover; she was
later to become the mistress of Charles II. Gwyn remained a lifelong friend and
political associate, and her relationship with the King gave Rochester
influence and status within the Court.
Twenties
and last years
Rochester's
life was divided between domesticity in the country and a riotous existence at
court, where he was renowned for drunkenness, vivacious conversation, and
"extravagant frolics" as part of the Merry Gang (as Andrew Marvell
described them). The Merry Gang flourished for about 15 years after 1665 and
included Henry Jermyn; Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset; John Sheffield, Earl
of Mulgrave; Henry Killigrew; Sir Charles Sedley; the playwrights William
Wycherley and George Etherege; and George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham.
Gilbert Burnet wrote of him that, "For five years together he was
continually Drunk ... [and] not ... perfectly Master of himself ... [which] led
him to ... do many wild and unaccountable things."[8] Pepys's Diary
records one such occasion on 16 February 1669 when Rochester was invited to
dine with the King and the Dutch ambassador:
The
King dining yesterday at the Dutch ambassador's, after dinner they drank and
were pretty merry; and among the rest of the King's company there was that worthy
fellow my Lord of Rochester, and Tom Killigrew, whose mirth and raillery
offended the former so much that he did give Tom Killigrew a box on the ear in
the King's presence, which do give much offence to the people here at Court ...
His
actions were considered an offence against the King, or a lèse-majesté, and he
was banned from the court, although the King soon called for his return.
In
1673, Rochester began to train Elizabeth Barry as an actress. She went on to
become the most famous actress of her age. He took her as his mistress in 1675.
The relationship lasted for around five years, and produced a daughter, before
descending into acrimony after Rochester began to resent her success. Rochester
wrote afterwards, "With what face can I incline/To damn you to be only
mine? ... Live up to thy mighty mind/And be the mistress of mankind".
When
the King's advisor and friend of Rochester, George Villiers, lost power in
1673, Rochester's standing fell as well. At the Christmas festivities at
Whitehall of that year, Rochester delivered a satire to Charles II, "In
the Isle of Britain" – which criticized the King for being obsessed with
sex at the expense of his kingdom. Charles's reaction to this satirical
portrayal resulted in Rochester's exile from the court until February. During
this time Rochester dwelt at his estate in Adderbury. Despite this, in February
1674, after much petitioning by Rochester, the King appointed him Ranger of
Woodstock Park.
In
1674 Rochester was appointed ranger of Woodstock Forest, where much of his
later poetry was written. His health was declining, and his thoughts were
turning to serious matters. His correspondence (dated 1679–80) with the Deist
Charles Blount shows a keen interest in philosophy and religion, further
stimulated by his friendship with Gilbert Burnet, later bishop of Salisbury.
Burnet recorded their religious discussions in Some Passages of the Life and
Death of John, Earl of Rochester (1680). In 1680 he became seriously ill and
experienced a religious conversion, followed by a recantation of his past; he
ordered “all his profane and lewd writings” burned.
In
June 1675 "Lord Rochester in a frolick after a rant did ... beat downe the
dyill (i.e. sundial) which stood in the middle of the Privie Garding, which was
esteemed the rarest in Europ". John Aubrey learned what Rochester said on
this occasion when he came in from his "revells" with Charles
Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, and Fleetwood Sheppard to see the object:
"'What ... doest thou stand here to fuck time?' Dash they fell to
worke". It has been speculated that the comment refers not to the dial
itself, which was not phallic in appearance, but a painting of the King next to
the dial that featured his phallic sceptre. Rochester fled the court again.
Rochester
fell into disfavour again in 1676. During a late-night scuffle with the night
watch, one of Rochester's companions, Roger Downes, was killed by a
pike-thrust. Rochester was reported to have fled the scene of the incident, and
his standing with the monarch reached an all-time low. Following this incident,
Rochester briefly fled to Tower Hill, where he impersonated a mountebank
"Doctor Bendo". Under this persona, he claimed skill in treating
"barrenness" (infertility), and other gynaecological disorders.
Gilbert Burnet wryly noted that Rochester's practice was "not without
success", implying his intercession of himself as a surreptitious sperm
donor. On occasion, Rochester also assumed the role of the grave and matronly
Mrs. Bendo, presumably so that he could inspect young women privately without
arousing their husbands' suspicions.
Death
By
the age of 33, Rochester was dying from what is usually described as the
effects of tertiary syphilis, gonorrohea, or other venereal diseases, combined
with the effects of alcoholism. Carol Richards has disputed this, arguing that
it is more likely that he died of renal failure due to chronic nephritis
(Bright's disease). His mother had him attended in his final weeks by her
religious associates, particularly Gilbert Burnet, later Bishop of Salisbury.
After
hearing of Burnet's departure from his side, Rochester muttered his last words:
"Has my friend left me? Then I shall die shortly". In the early
morning of 26 July 1680, Rochester died "without a shudder or a
sound". He was buried at Spelsbury church in Oxfordshire.
A
deathbed renunciation of libertinism and conversion to Anglican Christianity,
Some Passages of the Life and Death of the Honourable John Wilmot Earl of
Rochester, was published by Reverend Burnet. Because this account appears in
Burnet's own writings, its accuracy has been disputed by some scholars, who
accuse Burnet with having shaped the account of Rochester's denunciation of
libertinism to enhance his own reputation. On the other hand, Graham Greene, in
his biography of Wilmot, calls Burnet's book "convincing".
He
died at age 33, probably of venereal disease and the effects of chronic
alcoholism. Because of Rochester’s notoriety, he became (and has in some ways
remained) the face of a Restoration court culture that has been remembered as
uniquely licentious.
But
it is too simple to reduce libertinism to sexual licentiousness, or to think of
Rochester as only a party animal, is to sell libertinism short. For Rochester
and other libertines of this period, the “liber”–Latin for “free”–at the root
of the word “libertine” was key, signifying the freedom that they sought from
traditional, stultifying dogmas of any kind. Libertines struck out on their
own, rejecting orthodox systems of morality and manners, determined to use their
own minds and sensibilities to forge paths where they relied on the evidence of
their own senses and on logic, rather than on belief or tradition. They wanted
to question everything–religious dogma, political orthodoxy, the moral systems
they inherited from the past. This was the era, too, when experimental science
was taking off, and Rochester and other writers of the period were intent on
describing the world in the same realistic terms that were being called for by
experimental scientists; the frank sexuality of Rochester’s poetry comes in
part out of a desire to name things accurately and directly rather than
euphemistically. There is a great deal that is admirable about a stance like
this, and a lot that should sound familiar to us; libertines like Rochester saw
themselves as modern men, breaking the chains of tradition and striking out in
new directions. Sexuality was a big part of libertinism, but only a part.
Rochester’s
poetry is thus suitably bold, funny, satirical, and sharp. His poem “Satyr” is
an aggressive attack on the human impulse to follow orthodoxies of any kind,
and is one of the great testimonies of a thinker who is willing to follow his
belief in reason untainted by dogma to its logical conclusion. And “The
Imperfect Enjoyment” makes a hilarious, theatrical scene out of a bout of
impotence. At the heart of most of Rochester’s poems is a narrator who is in
some ways like, in some ways unlike, Rochester, who, for all his swagger, is
able to mock himself.
Works
Like
many writers of this period, Rochester was a coterie poet, though in his case
the coterie was the court of Charles II. In the court culture that Rochester
moved in, writing poetry was a was of gaining attention, of demonstrating one’s
intelligence and taste. It is plausible, in fact, that some of Rochester’s
outrageousness has something to do with this coterie environment, since saying
outrageous things was a way to stand out and gain the King’s favor (it was also
a way to lose the King’s favor when you went too far, as Rochester did on a few
occasions; he spent some time as a prisoner in the Tower of London).
Rochester’s poems circulated in manuscript well before they ended up in print,
and he was not at all eager to see his works printed, since that kind of
“publication” would make his writing available to the vulgar masses. He never
authorized an edition of his own works. Rochester’s poems thus present a kind
of nightmare to editors trying to figure out the authentic text, which is in
many cases a hopeless task. Some of his poems were group efforts, with several
members of the court contributing various parts, or with Rochester adding his
own ideas to a poem that was started by someone else. Some poems may have been
begun by Rochester but were revised by others, or perhaps revised by Rochester
himself; one example of this is “Satyr”
for which Rochester added the final paragraphs as a response to a sermon
attacking the first version of the poem. And, to complicate things much
further, there are many poems that have been attributed to Rochester that he
either certainly did not write, or for which his authorship is an open
question. An example of this is “Signior Dildo,” which is often attributed to
Rochester, but which may or may not be by him. We include it here in a kind of
homage to the way that “Rochester” came to refer less even in his own lifetime
not so much to an individual man but to a kind of myth of the model libertine,
the kind of person who could be expected to have written such a poem, and who
therefore might as well be considered to be its “author.”
Rochester's
poetic work varies widely in form, genre, and content. He was part of a
"mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease", who continued to produce
their poetry in manuscripts, rather than in publication. As a consequence, some
of Rochester's work deals with topical concerns, such as satires of courtly
affairs in libels, to parodies of the styles of his contemporaries, such as Sir
Carr Scrope. He is also notable for his impromptus,[33] one of which is a
teasing epigram on King Charles II:
We have a pretty witty king,
Whose word no man relies on.
He never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one.
To
which Charles supposedly replied, "That's true, for my words are my own,
but my actions are those of my ministers".
Rochester's
poetry displays a range of learning and influences. These included imitations
of Malherbe, Ronsard, and Boileau. He also translated or adapted from classical
authors such as Petronius, Lucretius, Ovid, Anacreon, Horace, and Seneca.
Rochester's
writings were at once admired and infamous. A Satyr Against Mankind (1675), one
of the few poems he published (in a broadside in 1679), is a scathing
denunciation of rationalism and optimism that contrasts human perfidy with
animal wisdom.
The
majority of his poetry was not published under his name until after his death.
Because most of his poems circulated only in manuscript form during his
lifetime, it is likely that much of his writing does not survive. Burnet
claimed that Rochester's conversion experience led him to ask that "all
his profane and lewd writings" be burned; it is unclear how much, if any,
of Rochester's writing was destroyed.
Rochester
was also interested in the theatre. In addition to an interest in actresses, he
wrote an adaptation of Fletcher's Valentinian (1685), a scene for Sir Robert
Howard's The Conquest of China, a prologue to Elkanah Settle's The Empress of
Morocco (1673), and epilogues to Sir Francis Fane's Love in the Dark (1675),
Charles Davenant's Circe, a Tragedy (1677). The best-known dramatic work
attributed to Rochester, Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery, has never
been successfully proven to be written by him. Posthumous printings of Sodom,
however, gave rise to prosecutions for obscenity, and were destroyed. On 16
December 2004 one of the few surviving copies of Sodom was sold by Sotheby's
for £45,600.
"[Rochester's] letters to his wife and to his
friend Henry Savile ... show an admirable mastery of easy, colloquial
prose."
Scholarship
has identified approximately 75 authentic Rochester poems. Three major critical
editions of Rochester in the twentieth century have taken very different
approaches to authenticating and organising his canon. David Vieth's 1968
edition adopts a heavily biographical organisation, modernising spellings and
heading the sections of his book "Prentice Work", "Early
Maturity", "Tragic Maturity", and "Disillusionment and
Death". Keith Walker's 1984 edition takes a genre-based approach,
returning to the older spellings and accidentals in an effort to present
documents closer to those a seventeenth-century audience would have received.
Harold Love's Oxford University Press edition of 1999, now the scholarly
standard, notes the variorum history conscientiously, but arranges works in
genre sections ordered from the private to the public.
Reception and influence
Rochester
was the model for a number of rake heroes in plays of the period, such as Don
John in Thomas Shadwell's The Libertine (1675) and Dorimant in George
Etherege's The Man of Mode (1676). Meanwhile he was eulogised by his
contemporaries such as Aphra Behn and Andrew Marvell, who described him as
"the only man in England that had the true vein of satire". Daniel
Defoe quoted him in Moll Flanders, and discussed him in other works. Voltaire,
who spoke of Rochester as "the man of genius, the great poet",
admired his satire for its "energy and fire" and translated some
lines into French to "display the shining imagination his lordship only
could boast".
By
the 1750s, Rochester's reputation suffered as the liberality of the Restoration
era subsided; Samuel Johnson characterised him as a worthless and dissolute
rake. Horace Walpole described him as "a man whom the muses were fond to
inspire but ashamed to avow". Despite this general disdain for Rochester,
William Hazlitt commented that his "verses cut and sparkle like
diamonds" while his "epigrams were the bitterest, the least laboured,
and the truest, that ever were written". Referring to Rochester's
perspective, Hazlitt wrote that "his contempt for everything that others
respect almost amounts to sublimity". Meanwhile, Goethe quoted A Satyr
against Reason and Mankind in English in his Autobiography. Despite this,
Rochester's work was largely ignored throughout the Victorian era.
Rochester's
reputation would not begin to revive until the 1920s. Ezra Pound, in his ABC of
Reading, compared Rochester's poetry favourably to better-known figures such as
Alexander Pope and John Milton. Graham Greene characterised Rochester as a
"spoiled Puritan". Although F. R. Leavis argued that "Rochester
is not a great poet of any kind", William Empson admired him. More
recently, Germaine Greer has questioned the validity of the appraisal of
Rochester as a drunken rake, and hailed the sensitivity of some of his lyrics.
Rochester
was listed #6 in Time Out's "Top 30 chart of London's most erotic
writers". Tom Morris, the associate director, of the National Theatre
said, "Rochester reminds me of an unhinged poacher, moving noiselessly
through the night and shooting every convention that moves. Bishop Burnett, who
coached him to an implausible death-bed repentance, said that he was unable to
express any feeling without oaths and obscenities. He seemed like a punk in a
frock coat. But once the straw dolls have been slain, Rochester celebrates in a
sexual landscape all of his own."
In popular culture
A
play, The Libertine (1994), was written by Stephen Jeffreys, and staged by the
Royal Court Theatre. The 2004 film The Libertine, based on Jeffreys' play,
starred Johnny Depp as Rochester, Samantha Morton as Elizabeth Barry, John
Malkovich as King Charles II and Rosamund Pike as Elizabeth Malet. Michael
Nyman set to music an excerpt of Rochester's poem "Signor Dildo" for
the film.
The
play The Ministry of Pleasure by Craig Baxter also dramatises Wilmot's life and
was produced at the Latchmere Theatre, London in 2004.
Rochester
is the central character in Anna Lieff Saxby's 1996 erotic novella, No Paradise
but Pleasure.
The
story of Lord Rochester's life in Susan Cooper-Bridgewater's historical fiction
Of Ink, Wit and Intrigue – Lord Rochester in Chains of Quicksilver, 2014.
Nick
Cave's 2004 song "There She Goes, My Beautiful World", from the album
Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus, includes the lines "John Wilmot
penned his poetry / Riddled with the pox".
Germaine
Greer published a piece called "Doomed to Sincerity" about the life
of the Earl.
Rochester
is generally considered to be the most considerable poet and the most learned
among the Restoration wits. A few of his love songs have passionate intensity;
many are bold and frankly erotic celebrations of the pleasures of the flesh. He
is also one of the most original and powerful of English satirists. His
“History of Insipids” (1676) is a devastating attack on the government of
Charles II, and his “Maim’d Debauchee” has been described as “a masterpiece of
heroic irony.” A Satyr Against Mankind (1675) anticipates Swift in its scathing
denunciation of rationalism and optimism and in the contrast it draws between
human perfidy and folly and the instinctive wisdom of the animal world.
His
single dramatic work, the posthumous Valentinian (1685), an attempt to rehandle
a tragedy of John Fletcher’s, contains two of his finest lyrics. His letters to
his wife and to his friend Henry Savile are among the best of the period and
show an admirable mastery of easy, colloquial prose.
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