John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester and Baron of Adderbury in England, Viscount Athlone in Ireland, infamous in his time for his life and works and admired for his deathbed performance, was the cynosure of the libertine wits of Restoration England....

The Works of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. Ed. by Harold Love. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1999. xlvii+712 pp. [pound]95. Songs to Phillis: A Performing Edition of the Early Settings of Poems by the Earl of Rochester (1647-80). Ed. by Steven Devine and Nicholas...

HE IS ONE of the rudest and most debauched poets ever to write in English, and also one of the most privileged. Restoration poet and satirist John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, was a more accomplished writer than Lord Byron or the Marquis...

In the following essay, Everett examines Rochester's work in the context of Restoration England and the Court of King Charles II, discussing the poet's need to follow fashion and the way his poems point to a void beneath a smooth social surface.

In the following essay, Hammond and Kewes examine the impact of A Satire Against Mankind upon Restoration dramatists and claims that the poem should be understood in the context of the contemporary theater, especially considering its importance for the libertine debates of the 1670s, which were conducted through the medium of drama.

In this essay, Righter interprets Rochester's poetry in terms of the roles he played in real life, nothing that Rochester mythologized himself, used a variety of voices in his poems, and freely imitated other literary styles.