Unit Three “Rakes and Poets”

Unit Three“Rakes and Poets” Lecture Three: Earlier Poets

Stereotypical Restoration Literature • very small part of what was happening in literature. • a small circle of the aristocracy and Court circles. • this small group of taste-makers had the freedom that money and power grants.

Characteristics of Cavalier Poetry • Cultivated but colloquial idiom - written with the ease of a noble • Artificially urbane refinement and elegant symmetry of form instead of feeling • Indebtedness to the lighter Latin poets - Catullus, Horace, Ovid • Strong sensuous and worldly quality. These were pagazined sophisticates foreshadowing the amorality of the Restoration.

Restoration Writers • The religious strife of their parents’ generation and their own childhood has left them questioning many aspects of life, religion and philosophy. • Many were exploring Deism (atheism was something hard for them to imagine at this stage), and others were jaded by the sexual excesses of both the French Court and their life as exiles.

Loss of Moral Touchstones • Living in exile is rather like being in war. You tend to give up on some of the old moral touchstones. • If you think you might never have a home, a life, you learn to look for satisfaction in other places. • A famous Cavalier poem from the war years reminds us: “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.”

Cavalier Hero • Alfred Harbage, the Cavalier of popular imagination was “a merry, fearless, improvident goodfellow, morally eclectic but aboveboard withall”.

Other Cavalier Qualities • a staunch Tory • politically conservative • faithful servant of the Stuart family. • Loyal to Charles II and usually James as well, they were both very aware of, and very appreciative of, • class distinctions, • manners • wit.

Cavalier Sexuality • Cavaliers were also popularly seen as romantic rovers who believed that sexuality was natural and overwhelming, and as such, beyond the control of institutions such as religion. • Sexuality must also be free from social constraints like marriage and constancy.

Frank and Vulgar • The poetry of the Restoration is crude and vulgar on many levels. • Scatology, frank sexuality, and even sexual contempt and hatred have honored places in Restoration poetry because they vigorously and forcefully express dislike of unthinking conformity, hypocrisy, and pretense • They frankly represent the sexual vigor and strong feelings of men and women

Sex as a Weapon • The wits of Charles's court could mock others because they could mock themselves and their king • Their libertine sentiments are very close to the sources of their poetry--not only of their amatory verse but also of their political satire

Private Mirrors the Public • During this period, private wrong-doing was thought to mirror public misdeeds • Sexual satire was a totally acceptable weapon to use against one’s enemies.

Pastoral Mode • "Pastoral" (from pastor, Latin for "shepherd") refers to a literary work dealing with shepherds and rustic life. Pastoral poetry is highly conventionalized; it presents an idealized rather than realistic view of rustic life.

Classical Sources • Greek and Latin pastoral works date back to the 3rd century B.C. • Greek poet Theocritus wrote his Idylls about the rustic life of Sicily for the sophisticated citizens of the city of Alexandria. • In the first century B.C., Virgil wrote Latin poems depicting himself and his equally sophisticated friends and acquaintances as shepherds living a simple, rural life.

Common Topics of Pastoral • love and seduction • the value of poetry • death and mourning • the corruption of the city or court vs. the "purity" of idealized country life • politics • generally treated satirically: the "shepherds" critique society or easily identifiable political figures.

Eclogue • a dialogue between two shepherds. • may be between a shepherd and the shepherdess he loves • a "singing contest" to see which shepherd is the better poet (a third may act as judge) • sophisticated banter between two supposedly "rude swains" who discuss a lady, their flocks, or a current event • lament a dead friend (a eulogy or elegy); or praise a notable individual.

Monologue Form • Laudatory poems, laments upon a death, songs of courtship and the complaints of a lovesick shepherd also occur as pastoral monologues.

Purely Artistic Device • It creates a distancing effect which allows the poet to step back from and critique society. • The artificiality of pastoral poetry is most explicit in the courtly language and dress of the "shepherds” • better fit the drawing rooms of polite society than the hills, swamps and sheepfolds of real rustic life.

Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset • Born 1638,died 1706. • influential participant in Charles II's "ministry of pleasure” • ended his career as high-ranking but uninfluential member of King William III's cabinet.

Not Only Patron but Poet • Included in Johnson’s The Lives of the Poets. • Johnson valued him very little, • Dryden's Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire (1693), ranked Dorset as a rival of the ancients in satire.

Two Best Satires • “Colon” (1679) about the end days of Charles II’s reign • "A Faithful Catalogue of our most Eminent Ninnies" (1687) about James II’s reign.

Life After Charles II • Part of James’s coronation • tried to retire as he was not truly a full supporter of the Catholic James. • At William and Mary’s coronations, member of the honor escort of Princess Anne, • During this period as a loyal Whig, a member of the Kit Cat Club, and patron of many writers.

Best Known Work • The ballad “To All You Ladies Now at Land” • Written while he was at sea with the Duke of York during the Dutch Wars.

A Fop • A fop is a man who doesn’t “get it” • Wants to be fashionable and in the “in-crowd” but is always a little off • A figure of fun • Will cover further next week

Countess of Dorchester • Katherine Sedley, daughter of his old drinking companion Sir Charles Sedley. • Irritated Dorset for several reasons: • She was a rather plain woman, and he liked them beautiful • second, she was not only extremely witty but intelligent and better read than many women of her day, • Finally, she was for a time a mistress of James II, for whom Dorset had little respect.

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester • More infamous than famous • Wrote scurrilous lampoons, translations of classical authors, and several autobiographical poems.

Rochester and Sex • A predecessor to the Marquis De Sade • Wrote more frankly about sex than anyone in English before the 20th Century

His Poetry • metanymic poet, one who seeks intellectual links • as opposed to a metaphoric poet (fl. 1740-89), the “poets of sensibility” (Northrup Frye’s term), those who seek emotional links.

David Lodge • Modes of Modern Writing, very significant critical work. • Famous for non-fiction as well. See his novel Small World, a satire of academic life.

Metanymic • he defines as having few words, rhythm is important • like Racine’s work • there’s a precision in the writing.

Metaphoric • has a great abundance of vocabulary and lots of freedom in placement • like the metaphysical poets.

Rochester, 1647 to 1680 • "in a course of drunken gaiety and gross sensuality, with intervals of study perhaps yet more criminal, with an avowed contempt of decency and order, a total disregard to every moral, and a resolute denial of every religious observation, he lived worthless and useless, and blazed out his youth and health in lavish voluptuousness” • Samuel Johnson

Background • Mother from a Parliamentarian family. • Father, a hard-drinking Royalist from Anglo-Irish stock • had been created Earl of Rochester in 1652 for military services to Charles II during his exile under the Commonwealth; • he died abroad in 1658, two years before the restoration of monarchy in England, • Rochester inherited the earldom when 11

University and Beyond • At 12 went to Oxford, and that’s where he `grew debauched'. • At 14 he was conferred with the degree of M.A. by the Earl of Clarendon, Chancellor to the University • Rochester's uncle. • After a tour of France and Italy, he returned to London, where he joined the Court. • Courage in sea-battle against the Dutch made him a hero.

Elopement from Pepys’s Diary • " my Lord Rochester's running away on Friday night last with Mrs Mallet, the great beauty and fortune of the North, who had supped at Whitehall with Mrs Stewart, and was going home to her lodgings with her grandfather, my Lord Haly, by coach; • con’t

Pepys' Diary, 28 May 1665: • and was at Charing Cross seized on by both horse and footmen, 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 success) was taken at Uxbridge; but the lady is not yet heard of, and the King mighty angry and the Lord sent to the Tower."

Married Malet 1667 • Rochester's life after his marriage is divided between domesticity in the country and a riotous existence at Court

The “Merry Gang” • Term coined by Andrew Marvell, a Puritan, called them. • The gang flourished for about fifteen years after 1665 and included Henry Jermyn, Sackville, John Sheffield Earl of Mulgrave, Henry Killigrew, Sir Charles Sedley, the playwrights Wycherley and Etherege, as well as George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.

His “Talents” • At Court, he was renowned for drunkenness, vivacious conversation, and "extravagant frolics"

Deathbed Conversion? • At the age of thirty-three, as Rochester lay dying - from syphilis, most likely- his mother had him attended by the famous Anglican Bishop Gilbert Burnet • Deathbed renunciation of atheism was published by the Bishop. This became legendary, reappearing in numerous pious tracts over the next two centuries.

Literary Admires • Defoe quoted him widely and often. • Tennyson would recite from him with fervour. • Voltaire admired Rochester's satire for 'energy and fire' and translated some lines into French to 'display the shining imagination his lordship only could boast'. • Goethe could quote Rochester in English, and cited his lines to epitomise the intensely 'mournful region' he encountered in English poetry. • Hazlitt judged that 'his verses cut and sparkle like diamonds', while 'his contempt for everything that others respect almost amounts to sublimity'.

Aphra Behn • She was sometimes known as “Astrea” • the first woman to really make her name as a writer. • 1640?-1689

Important Role Model • "All women ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn . . . for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds” • Virigina Woolf • First woman to make her living as a playwright • cookbook writers were first professional women writers

Hidden Early Life • Spy for the Stuarts • Thrown into debtor’s prison • Plays were fun: • The Rover • Emperor of the Moon • Reviled by many contemporary males as well as females:

Gould’s Satire

Novel Innovator • When the novel was created is a huge literary question, but she was certainly one of the innovators. • We’ll be reading her most famous is Oroonoko (1688) and another • Also wrote laudatory poems as well as a poetry translation of Aesop’s fables. • A new edition of her works has been put out over the past 10 years, edited by Janet Todd

Double Standard • Reviled for her “warmth,” but as she wrote no more bawdily than most of her peers • Much more chaste than some, including the two we’re reading today.

Unit Three “Rakes and Poets”