KEN ROBINSON
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182894
- eISBN:
- 9780191673917
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182894.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter stresses that biographies cannot be definitive because John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647–80) throws up particular problems which face biographers at every turn with their prejudices. ...
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This chapter stresses that biographies cannot be definitive because John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647–80) throws up particular problems which face biographers at every turn with their prejudices. The chronicle of Rochester's life is relatively sparse and his oeuvre is relatively small. Much of both are sensational, but both also present remarkable uncertainties. The uncertainties of the life and the canon are not mere accidents of history: they are evoked by, constitute a response to, and mirror something of Rochester the man, something which one can find reflected too in the difficulties critics have experienced with his poetry. The uncertainties surrounding Rochester's life start literally ab ovo.Less
This chapter stresses that biographies cannot be definitive because John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647–80) throws up particular problems which face biographers at every turn with their prejudices. The chronicle of Rochester's life is relatively sparse and his oeuvre is relatively small. Much of both are sensational, but both also present remarkable uncertainties. The uncertainties of the life and the canon are not mere accidents of history: they are evoked by, constitute a response to, and mirror something of Rochester the man, something which one can find reflected too in the difficulties critics have experienced with his poetry. The uncertainties surrounding Rochester's life start literally ab ovo.
Hammond Paul
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198186922
- eISBN:
- 9780191674617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186922.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter focuses on John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. His name is synonymous with heterosexual liberalism, but the chapter explores ways in which homosexual interests are paraded as part of a ...
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This chapter focuses on John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. His name is synonymous with heterosexual liberalism, but the chapter explores ways in which homosexual interests are paraded as part of a libertine ethos. It argues that for all the homosexual bravado encountered from time to time in this poetry, there is actually no real homoeroticism here, in the sense of felt desire for the male body.Less
This chapter focuses on John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. His name is synonymous with heterosexual liberalism, but the chapter explores ways in which homosexual interests are paraded as part of a libertine ethos. It argues that for all the homosexual bravado encountered from time to time in this poetry, there is actually no real homoeroticism here, in the sense of felt desire for the male body.
Sarah Ellenzweig
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804758772
- eISBN:
- 9780804769792
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804758772.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This book is the first literary study of freethinking and religious skepticism in the English Enlightenment. The book aims to redress this scholarly lacuna, arguing that a literature of English ...
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This book is the first literary study of freethinking and religious skepticism in the English Enlightenment. The book aims to redress this scholarly lacuna, arguing that a literature of English freethinking has been overlooked because it unexpectedly supported aspects of institutional religion. Analyzing works by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, Aphra Behn, Jonathan Swift, and Alexander Pope, it foregrounds a strand of the English freethinking tradition that was suspicious of revealed religion yet often strongly opposed to the open denigration of Anglican Christianity and its laws. By exposing the contradictory and volatile status of categories like belief and doubt this book participates in the larger argument in Enlightenment studies—as well as in current scholarship on the condition of modernity more generally—that religion is not so simply left behind in the shift from the pre-modern to the modern world.Less
This book is the first literary study of freethinking and religious skepticism in the English Enlightenment. The book aims to redress this scholarly lacuna, arguing that a literature of English freethinking has been overlooked because it unexpectedly supported aspects of institutional religion. Analyzing works by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, Aphra Behn, Jonathan Swift, and Alexander Pope, it foregrounds a strand of the English freethinking tradition that was suspicious of revealed religion yet often strongly opposed to the open denigration of Anglican Christianity and its laws. By exposing the contradictory and volatile status of categories like belief and doubt this book participates in the larger argument in Enlightenment studies—as well as in current scholarship on the condition of modernity more generally—that religion is not so simply left behind in the shift from the pre-modern to the modern world.
Nigel Smith
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300112214
- eISBN:
- 9780300168396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300112214.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter explores the influence that Andrew Marvell's The Rehearsal Transpros'd had on the political landscape of his time. For many people, Marvell was a wit, a controversialist, and a poet, and ...
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This chapter explores the influence that Andrew Marvell's The Rehearsal Transpros'd had on the political landscape of his time. For many people, Marvell was a wit, a controversialist, and a poet, and his fame became evident when more works began to appear that gave him the victory in his fight with Parker. Even John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, incorporated phrases from The Rehearsal Transpros'd in one of his most important verse satires, “Tunbridge Wells.” But although Marvell work had become part of a larger cultural movement, his writing had also triggered a decline in public morals. Others received his work with more reserve—such as the anonymous author of An Apology and advice for some of the clergy (1674), who decided that a lack of reply would reflect the clergy's virtue and piety. The chapter continues marking the landscape that sprung forth after the rise of Marvell's fame.Less
This chapter explores the influence that Andrew Marvell's The Rehearsal Transpros'd had on the political landscape of his time. For many people, Marvell was a wit, a controversialist, and a poet, and his fame became evident when more works began to appear that gave him the victory in his fight with Parker. Even John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, incorporated phrases from The Rehearsal Transpros'd in one of his most important verse satires, “Tunbridge Wells.” But although Marvell work had become part of a larger cultural movement, his writing had also triggered a decline in public morals. Others received his work with more reserve—such as the anonymous author of An Apology and advice for some of the clergy (1674), who decided that a lack of reply would reflect the clergy's virtue and piety. The chapter continues marking the landscape that sprung forth after the rise of Marvell's fame.
