GLR July-August 2025

BOOKS

A 17th-Century Martyr for Sin

P REACHING at the funeral of Restoration poet, satirist, and courtier John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester (1647–1680), the ter minally self-righteous Anglican cleric Robert Parsons lamented that, “so con firmed was he in sin, that he lived, and of tentimes almost died, a martyr for it.” The similarly censorious Samuel Johnson like wise condemned Rochester’s “avowed con

about their social image (“Thou cunt be not coy, reputation is nice”), he guffawed at the extremes to which one might go in the pur suit of “the juice of lusty men.” Women don’t care “How empty and how dull/ The heads of [their] admirers are—/ So that their cods [codpieces or crotches] be full,” he wryly observed. And, in one of the most daring poems of the period, he praises the dependence on “Signor Dildo” (leather dil Rochester likewise exposes to comic derision the extent to which men are dominated by their sex drive. In “Regime de Vivre,” the speaker recounts his daily routine of drinking and pleasure-seeking, concluding with his “bugger[ing] my page” after his mistress abandons him. Similarly, in “Love a does were a recent innovation imported from Italy) of some of the most nobly born and powerful ladies of the court, all of whom he cites by name.

R AYMOND -J EAN F RONTAIN

ROCHESTER AND THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE by Larry Carver Manchester University Press 259 pages. $130.

tempt of all decency and order,” lamenting that he “lived worthless and useless, and blazed out his youth and his health in lavish voluptuousness,” dying at 32 of acute alco hol poisoning and advanced syphilis.

To the casual eye, the biographical evidence supports Parsons’ and Johnson’s view of Rochester as a feckless, self-destructive profligate. He posed wearing his court robes for a portrait in which, rather than crowning a bust of Homer or Aristotle

woman! You’re an ass,” the speaker re nounces intercourse with women alto gether but recognizes that when the need arises: “There’s a sweet soft page of mine/ Does the trick worth forty wenches.” Frankly acknowl edging in various poems a profli gate’s inevitable problems with premature ejaculation and impo tence, Rochester even anticipates the time of life when he shall be physically disabled by his con stant debauch and reduced

as was the convention in such paint ings, he bestows a laurel wreath on a monkey. He managed to offend the generally easygoing and sexually lax King Charles II with a lampoon identifying the king’s phallus as his scepter and claiming that whichever mistress grasped it was the de facto ruler of the country. He posted footmen in the palace hallways to report to him who en tered and left which bedroom at night, information he used in his satires. And when banished from

to relying on his memo ries of past pleasures. In “The Disabled Debau chee,” the speaker con soles his mistress: “Nor shall our love-fits, Cloris, be for got,/ When each the well looked [handsome] link-boy strove t’enjoy,/ And the best

court for a particularly egre gious transgression, he dis guised himself as Dr. Alexander Bendo, a moun tebank specializing in curing

reproductive maladies, and spent the period of his exile helping barren women become pregnant and impotent men achieve

kiss was the deciding lot:/ Whether the boy fucked you, or I the boy.” (Linkboys were adolescents with

erections. His wit, style, and sexual jouis sance made him the model for the rake in Restoration comedy. Of particular offense to moralists was Rochester’s exuberant celebration of sex with indiscrim inate partners. “There’s something generous in mere lust,” he comments in one lyric. Although women must be concerned Raymond-Jean Frontain, who has contributed to these pages since 2005, is working on a book about Tennessee Williams’ sexual ethic.

torches who lighted a benefactor’s way through the dark streets at night, a situation that allowed noblemen like Rochester to exercise their sexual droit de seigneur .) For Rochester, the pursuit of physical sensation provides the only antidote to one’s frustration at living in a hypocritical so ciety, even though constant drinking and intercourse actually dull one’s capacity for arousal: the more one craves stimulation,

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