Dr Kat and The Libertine Earl of Rochester

hello and welcome back to the channel if you're new here hi you're very welcome this is reading the past and I'm dr. Kat and in today's video I'm potentially going to be testing some of YouTube's boundaries as you can no doubt seed from the title I'm talking about John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester and in particular his poetry I mentioned Rochester in my video on Aphra Behn and I talked about how I wanted to make this video but that I had concerns I'm going to leave the Aphra Behn video linked in a cart up here in the comment section below the Aphra Behn video one of you Ross Edmonds hello said that I should still go ahead and make this video and that was all the encouragement I needed and here we are however the concerns haven't gone away and because of them mostly I don't want my channel to be deleted because of the four-letter expletives that are present in watched his poetry I've made this decision I'm going to redact the four-letter exploitive and also I'm going to change them for other words so certain words will be changed to cucumber or fudge for example and when I show the poems on the screen they will also be redacted I'm fairly sure you gave me able to guess exactly what these words were supposed to be and if you can't then that suggests to me that your perhaps too young to be watching this video to be clear this is a video for adults with adult content and quite a lot of lewd and swearing material I will also be leaving links to watch the original poetry in the description box down below so you can enjoy it in all its weary glory but if you're not an adult please don't go there and please click away from this video right now if you are still here then I'm assuming that you're over 18 and that means that we can talk about John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester his life and works let's go [Music] to my mind one of the overriding themes of John Wilmots entire life is chaos and this is true even at the time of his birth on the 10th of April 1647 John Wilmot is born into a Royalist family and the backdrop to his birth is the English Civil War within two years of Wilmots birth on the 30th of January 1649 King Charles the first is executed at the banqueting house the chaos has reached crescendo point John's father Henry Wilmots continued to loyally serve the executed king's son now named by many as king charles ii during his exile on the continent as a reward for this service Charles makes him the first Earl of Rochester Henry Wilmot dies on the 19th of February 1658 and at this point his son John inherits his title he is aged only 10 but he is the second Earl of Rochester at the time of his death his father's estates were heavily mortgaged and they were therefore forfeited fortunately his mother Anne sent John was able to save her own joint jurists so while he was significantly impoverished at least John Wilmot aged 10 had a claim to some land on the 18th of January 1660 John Wilmot who up until this point would have been privately tutored as was common among the sons of the nobility attends Bowdoin College Oxford John Wilmot at this point therefore is 13 years old but according to some people this is where he begins to be debauched on the 29th of May 1660 Charles Stewart enters London to be crowned and recognized as king charles ii by his people at this time all the noble titles and privileges were restored John Wilmot was in line to receive even more however and to do better still because of his father's service to Charles Stuart while an exile on the continent and also it would seem Charles a second personal affection for John Wilmot who he treated almost as a foster son in 1661 perhaps at the insistence of Charles a second John is created ma fierce noblest this is an honorary ma and charles ii pays for Wilmot to set out on his travels a grand tour for the next three years his whereabouts and activities are a mystery he appears in Venice on the 1st of October 1664 in Padua on the 26th of October 1664 and in Paris in November 1660 for while in Paris John meets with Henrietta and Stuart the sister of Charles a second and he takes a letter from her to give to her brother the king perhaps we should accept the fact that the 13 year old John Wilmot on turning up at Oxford in 1660 began his career of debauchery certainly by the 26th of May 1665 he had become reckless on this date he kidnaps Elizabeth mallet allegedly with the intention of marrying her Elizabeth mallet was one of the new beautiful court ladies and it would seem that the Earl of Rochester was besotted with her or perhaps he was besotted with her family's money her family were not so keen on the match thinking that he was too impoverished at this point remember of course that his father's lands had been forfeited because they were over mortgaged so he kidnaps her and the king sends him to the tower this is samuel peeps accounts of the event on the 28th of May 1665 peeps recounted the story of my lord Rochester's running away on Friday night last the 26th of May with mrs. mallet who had supped at Whitehall with mrs. Francis Stuart one of the maids of honor and was going home to her lodgings with her grandfather My Lord Hawley by coach and was at Charing Cross seized on by both horse and footman 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 Rochester for whom the King had spoke to the lady often but with no success was taken at Oxbridge but the lady is not yet heard of and the king mighty angry and the Lord sent to the tower fortunately for Rochester his imprisonment in the tower would not be very long-lasting and perhaps isn't in part due to the fact that king charles ii was particularly affectionate towards him on the 19th of june 1665 he ordered him to be released rochester had written a pleading deposition an apology to the king and it seems that it works almost immediately Rochester joins the fleet he is going to help fight the anglo-dutch war the anglo-dutch war at this point is a bit of a disaster but by all accounts Rochester behaves bravely and with honor certainly this man is now back in favor with the king charles ii gifts John Wilmot 750 pounds and the next March 1666 he makes him a gentleman of his bedchamber with this new appointment he gets lodgings at Whitehall and a thousand pounds a year for life perhaps this explains why he suddenly becomes a suitable match as far as Elizabeth mallets family are concerned on the 29th of January 1667 John Wilmot marries the woman here kidnapped two years previously Elizabeth mallet however it would be a mistake to see this protracted pursuit as evidence that John Wilmot loved his wife faithfully he may of course have loved her certainly he goes through a degree of trouble and risked to marry her but that does not stop him from having a number of affairs during their marriage like king charles ii his mentor and foster father and benefactor he likes court ladies and actresses and tries to bed as many of them as he can within months of his marriage to Elizabeth Rochester is appointed to the House of Lords he first takes his seat on the 10th of November 1660 7 but it seems that he was then in active participant in proceedings we have no evidence that he ever initiates a bill in his whole time in the House of Lords and indeed during the whole period that he was able to actually sit in the House of Lords from the 10th of October 1667 the 26th of January 1680 it appears that he only makes it to about 26 percent of the meetings clearly he thinks he has better things to do in addition to being a philanderer and a drunk John Wilmot it seems also had a propensity for violence on the 18th of June 1676 Rochester and a group of friends were involved in a violent altercation with one mr. downs mr. downs was struck in the head and he later died on the 27th of June there was talk that Rochester might face charges although that seems have come to nothing however we should perhaps temper this account that seems to point to John Wilmots propensity for violence with one from a little bit earlier when the Earl of Mulgrave challenged Rochester to a jeweled to take place on the 23rd of November 1669 Rochester set the terms he demanded the jewel take place on horseback and he appeared with his second fully mounted in fine style the Earl of Mar Grover chose to turn up not as well provided he asked that Rochester change the terms and fight on foot now because Rochester had been the one challenged he had the right to set the terms and he apparently was feeling little unwell and so he denied the change to fight on foot accusations of cowardice were flown from side to side no one really covered themselves in glory but regardless the jewel did not take place so from these two accounts we are potentially shown to different Rochester's if you like in one account we have a Rochester who with a group of friends is prepared to violently attack another mr. downs to be involved with striking about the head so severely that he dies in his injuries while the other coming from an earlier time period shows in Rochester who sets up a situation to potentially avoid having to jewel and kill a fellow nobleman now is this because a younger Rochester is less keen to engage in violence certainly less keen to kill a fellow nobleman is it possible however that in the later attack the one that ends up being fatal we can see that Rochester's debauchery is having an effect that he is losing his reason and perhaps his self-control on account of the lifestyle he is leading in addition to having affairs with actresses and in certain cases it seemed training them up in the art Rochester was also an inspiration for playwrights and they use him to form characters for the following plays he inspires Etheridge's man of mode in 1676 der phase Madame fickle from also 1676 Afra bends part two of the rover from 1681 please the princess of Cleves from 1680 two and crowns the city politics from 1683 however despite all of this his own legacy perhaps in Jaws for the most part because of his own poetic works and so I suppose without further ado it's time that we start to look at them I'm going to start with this one a ramble instant James's Park as it's perhaps one of the ludus poems that he has indeed it's worth mentioning that as late as 1953 it was deemed impossible to publish two of his poems the imperfect enjoyment and this one I suppose it's best that we read it to figure out why that might have been much wine had passed with grave discourse of who fudge is who and who does worse such as you usually do hear from those that die it at the barre when I who still take care to see drunkenness relieved by lecture II went out into some James's Park to cool my head and fire my heart but those since James's has the honour on it tis consecrate to prick and cucumber there by a most incestuous birth strange woods spring from the teeming earth for they relate how heretofore when ancient pict began to deluded of his assignation tilting it seems was then in fashion poor pensive lover in this place would Frigg upon his mother's face when throes of Mandrake stole did rise whose lewd tops fudged the very skies each imitative branch does twine in some loved fold of aerotyne and nightly now beneath their shade of burglaries rapes and incest made unto this all sin shelter in grove of the bulk and the alcove great lady's chamber maids and drudges the ragpicker and heiress trudges carmen Divine's great lords and tailors prentices poets pimps and jailers footmen fine fox do here arrived and here promiscuously they swipe along these hallowed walks it was that I beheld Corinna Pass whoever had been by to see the proud disdain she cast on me through charming eyes he would have swore she dropped from heaven that very hour forsaking the divine abode in scorn as some despair in God but mark what creatures women are how infinitely vile when fair three Knights of the elbow and the slur with wriggling tails made up to her the first was of your Whitehall boards near kin to the mother of the maids graced by whose favor he was able to bring a friend to the waiters table where he had heard Sir Edward Sutton say how the King loved ban stood mutton since when he'd never been brought to eat by his good will eat any other meat in this as well as all the rest he ventures to do like the best but wanting common sense the ingredient in choosing well not least expedient converts abortive imitation to universal affectation thus he not only eats and talks but feels and smells sits down and walks may looks and lives and loves by rote in an old tawdry birthday coat the second was a grave in which a great inhibitor of the pit where critic like he sits and squints Steel's pocket-handkerchiefs and hints from neighbor and the comedy to court and pay his landlady the third a lady's eldest son within few years of 21 who hopes from his propitious fate against he comes to his estate by these two were these to be made a most accomplished herring blade one in a strain twixt tun and nonsense cries Madame I have loved you long sin permit me your fair hand to kiss when at her mouth her cucumber cries yes in short without much more ado joyful and pleased away she flew and with these three confounded arses from park to hackney-coach she passes so a proud does lead about of humble kurz the amorous route who most obsequious ly do hunt the savory scent of assault swollen cucumber some power more patient now relate the sense of this surprising fate gods that a thing admired by me should fall to so much infamy had she picked out to rub her ass on some stiff prick clown or well hung parson each job of whose firm Attucks loose had filled her cucumber with wholesome juice I the preceding should have praised in hope she'd quenched a fire I raised such natural freedoms are but just there's something generous in mere lust but to turn a damned abandoned jade when neither head nor tail persuade to be a in understanding a passive pot for force to spend in the devil played booty sha with thee to bring a blot on him for me but why am i of all mankind to so severe a fate designed ungrateful why this treachery to humble fond believing me who gave you privilege above the nice allowances of love did I ever refuse to bear the meanest part your lust could spare when your lewd cucumber came spewing home drench with the seed of half the town my dram of sperm was sucked up after for the digestive surfeit water full gorge at another time with a vast meal of slime which your devouring cucumber had drawn from porters backs and footman's brawn I was content to serve you up my Ballack fall for your grace cup nor ever thought it an abuse while you had pleasure for excuse for that you could make my heart away for noise and color and betray the secrets of my tender hours to such knight-errant paramours when leaning on your faithless breasts wrapped in security and rest soft kindness all my powers did move and reason lay dissolved in love may stinking vapors choke your womb such as the men you dote upon may your depraved appetite that could in whiffling force delight forget such frenzy in your mind you may go mad for the north wind and fixing all your hopes upon it to have him bluster in your cucumber turn up your longing ass to the air and perish in wild despair but cowards shall forget to rant schoolboys to frig old to paint the jesuits fraternity shall leave the use of buggery crab louse inspired with grace divine from earthly cod to heaven shall climb physician shall believe in Jesus and disobedience cease to please us ere I desist with all my power to plague this woman and undo her but my revenge will be best timed when she is married that is lined in that most lamentable state I'll make her feel my scorn and hates Pelt her with scandals truth or lies and her porker with jealousies till I have torn him from her breech while she winds like a dog drawn loathed and despised kicked our the town into some dirty hole alone to chew the cud of misery and know she owes it all to me and may no woman better thrive that dares profaned the cucumber ice wife so that was just the first example and as I mentioned it is one of two poems in particular that sense in a big problem with being published until the mid 20th century up until that point it was almost impossible to do so and I think perhaps we can see why I mean the language used is for wonderful better term pretty ripe and the imagery is evocative and visceral and pretty smutty there is a large degree of shock value in this poetry but that seems to be a choice that Rochester is making indeed I think another academic puts it best when she says the following this is for Dean Van Hess in Bergen who is writing for the independence she explains that following his death in 1680 publishers scrambled to produce editions of Rochester's poems correctly perceiving the public appetite for his verse an initial run of pirate editions of Rochester's poetry was quickly supplanted with an authoritative collection produced in 1691 by the leading literary publisher of the day Jacob Thompson Rochester is often seen as a dangerous or obscene writer in the way he glamorized that I centrist world of the restoration Court but when we read his poetry more closely we find little glamour in the language expressed his verse exposes human feeling and behavior showing the superficiality of our social world with all its polite manners and codes of behavior and the use of obscene language is key to the project as Rochester succinctly phrased it in his correspondence quote expressions must descend to the nature of things expressed end quote the Victorians couldn't cope with watched his poetry and there were no editions of his work published in the nineteenth century it wasn't until 1963 in the wake of the Chatterley trial that the American scholar David MV began work on a modern uncensored edition vice gave us back the real Rochester and made it possible for readers to access his poems once again having looked at only one example of watched his poetry it will be all too easy to think this is a person who has no boundaries who think that they can say and also do anything and would little care but that is to ignore the evidence of the aftermath of what happens with this poem a satire on Charles a second John Wilmot accidentally puts this poem into the hands of King Charles a second he knows that he's made a mistake and because of it he flees caught for several months in the hopes that the Kings anger would be abated the fact that he has this response to the court shows us I believe that he does know where the boundaries are he knows where there's a line and also when he has crossed it and when he crosses that line he doesn't try and brazen it out in fact he flees in fear and disgrace but let's have a look at the poem and see just what made Rochester so uncomfortable in the Isle of Britain long since famous grown for breeding the best cucumbers in Christendom their reins and Oh long may he reign and thrive the easiest King and best bread man alive him no ambition moves to get renowned like the French fool that wanders up and down starving his people hazarding his crown piece is his aim his gentleness is such and love he loves for he loves fudging much nor are his desires above his strength he sceptre and his prick are of a length and she may sway the one who plays with other and make him little wiser than his brother poor Prince thy prick like thy buffoons a court will govern me because it makes the sport tis sure the sauciest prick that ever did swipe the proudest peremptories prick alive though safety law religion life lay on it would break through all to make its way to cucumber restless he rolls about from - a merry monarch scandalous and poor - car well the most dear of all his dears the best relief of his declining years oft he be wails his fortune and her fate to love so well and be beloved so late yet his dull graceless bollocks hang an ass this you'd believe had I but time to tell you the pains it costs - poor laborious Nelly while she employs hands fingers mouth and thighs ere she can raise the member she enjoys all monarchs I hate and the thrones they sit on from the Hector of France to the Cully of Britain king charles ii had done a lot for John Wilmot and indeed for his father Wilmot had inherited or given to his father by the king the King had been like a second father to the bereaved John Wilmot he had ensured that he was educated properly that he had the chance to go on his grand tour of traveling he gave him a place at court and renew marae shim financially very generously so this poem seems a little bit unkind to the man who's done so much for him and perhaps that explains just why Rochester would have been so shocked when he realized what he'd done this was cruel and unnecessary I mean to this man and so perhaps not only is he frightened of the Kings anger but he is perhaps also ashamed of hurting somebody who had been a foster father to him although fleeing the court does show that John Wilmot has at least the perspicacity to realize that he's gone too far that he's crossed the line the fact that he did so in the first place perhaps points to the fact that this is a man with very few boundaries and not a lot of common sense John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester has gone down in history as a penner of lewd poems a alcoholic a lecture and womanizer but also as a libertine indeed the libertine is the type of the 2004 film in which Johnny Depp plays John Wilmot Earl of Rochester and it shows his descent into alcoholism sickness and eventually painful death however if we are to find a redeeming personal quality about Rochester it is for me in his self awareness and self criticism he's very aware of who he is this debauched person who has brought many of his sufferings on himself and I think that's evident in the last poem I'd like to look at called the disabled de Buci I believe that this is John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester recounting his own experience his own failings and eventually his own sufferings that will result in his death let's have a look at it now as some brave Admiral in former war deprived of force but pressed with courage still two rival fleets appearing from afar crossed the top of an adjacent Hill from whence with thoughts full of concern he views the wise and daring conduct of the fight whilst each bold action to his mind renews his present glory and his past delight from his fierce eyes flashes of fire he throws as from black clouds when lightning breaks away transported thinks himself amidst the foes and absent yet enjoys the bloody day so when my days of impotence approach and I'm by pox and whines and lucky chance forced from the pleasing billows of de Boer CH onto the dole Shore of lazy temperance my pains at least some respite shall afford while I behold the battles you maintain when fleets of glasses sail about the board from whose broad sides volleys of which shall rain nor let the sight of honorable scars which my two forward valour did procure frighten new listed soldiers from the wars past Joy's have more than paid what I endure should any youth worth being drunk prove nice and from his fair invite a meanly shrink twill please the ghost of my departed vice if at my council he repent and drink or should some cold complexion SOT forbid with his dull morals our bold Knight alarms I'll fire his blood by telling what I did when I was strong and able to bear arms our tell of attacked their Lords at home boards quarters beaten up and fortresses won windows demolished watches overcome and handsome ills by my contrivance done nor shall our love Fitz cloris be forgot when each the well looked linked boy stro to enjoy and the best kiss was the deciding lot whether the boy fudged you or I the boy with tales like these I will such thoughts inspire as - important miss she shall incline I'll make him long some ancient church to fire and fear no lewdness he's called to buy wine thus statesmen like our sorcery imposed and safe from action valiantly advise sheltered in impotence urge you to blows and being good for nothing else be wise there's something quite charming if that's the correct word to use about the advice that Rochester seems to be presenting in this poem he admits and acknowledges that his own debauchery has led him to impotence and also to having the pox which we think his syphilis nevertheless he is not using his poem to remonstrate against those who follow in his path he isn't saying learn from me and act differently he is saying do exactly as I have done because I had a really good time and yes I might be suffering for it now but at least I had fun in my youth I'm not sure it's great advice but to me at least it's not hypocritical there seems to be a peculiar and perverse honesty to it John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester Raik libertine drunk and womanizer dies aged just 33 in the summer before his death the summer of 1679 Rochester his word that Jane Roberts who had been his former mistress has died at this time he also hears of her suffering under the mercury treatment and this was the common treatment for syphilis at around 2 a.m. on the 26th of July 1680s turd dies of complications from syphilis or some other venereal disease that had been coupled with his alcoholism and debauched living his own mother asserts that quote his head was a little disordered at the end of his life and this makes sense because as syphilis enters its final fatal stage it begins to affect the brain and causes symptoms of madness equally we can pretty much assume that Rochester's doctors would have been able to diagnose syphilis if that is indeed what he had and they would have treated in the familiar way you mercury so if the syphilis hadn't driven him mad then the mercury treatment designed to cure it almost certainly would have I'd like to finish by looking at a quote by Austin Saunders who writes an article about Rochester and his poetry for the spectator they say the following even if it would be pointless to call Rochester the first modern voice in English poetry he's a practitioner of what has become an important artistic technique claiming authenticity by being deliberately shocking what do you think about Rochester his life story and his poetic works do you agree with Austin Saunders for example that he is claiming authenticity by being deliberately shocking and if he is does it work what do you think of the poems that I have discussed today and also the poems I'm going to leave linked in the description box I'd love to know in the comment section down below or come and find me over on my social media I'll leave the links in the description box as well so you can follow me there and we can continue this conversation I hope you found this video interesting and useful if you did then please let me know by hitting the thumbs up please also subscribe to this channel and click the bellow icon so that YouTube will tell you and I've next uploaded I hope you're gonna have a great day whatever you're doing and I look forward to speaking to you in my next video take care of yourselves bye bye for now [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 47,698

Rating: 4.913898 out of 5

Keywords: John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, Charles II, The Libertine, Poetry, Satire, Education, Literature, Culture, History, Early Modern, Renaissance, Civil War, Interregnum, Restoration

Id: EaS8l0ZNEBs

Length: 32min 15sec (1935 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 08 2019