SOURCE: Manning, Gillian. “Artemiza to Chloe: Rochester's ‘Female’ Epistle.” In That Second Bottle: Essays on John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, edited by Nicholas Fisher, pp. 101-18. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000.

In the essay below, Manning points out that in Artemisia and Chloe Rochester presents a favorable picture of the female condition largely because of the subtly argued point of view presented by Artemisa, which is especially effective because to the powerful use of intertextual reference.

In a virulent, anti-feminist satire of 1691, Robert Gould invokes Rochester, and appropriates lines 26-7 from A Letter from Artemiza in the Towne to Chloe in the Countrey:

Hast thou not heard what Rochester declares? That Man of Men … He tells thee, Whore's the like reproachful Name, As Poetress—the luckless Twins of Shame.(1) 

Pace Gould, I should like to consider some of what (on balance) I take to be the predominantly female-friendly...