SOURCE: Weinbrot, Howard D. “The Swelling of the Volume: The Apocalyptic Satire of Rochester's Letter from Artemisia in the Town to Chloe in the Country.” Studies in the Literary Imagination 5, no. 2 (October, 1972): 19-37.

In this essay, Weinbrot claims that Artemisia to Chloe demonstrates Rochester's breadth of satiric talent, especially his adept use of the most pessimistic or “apocalyptic” form of contemporary satire, as the work presents the degeneration of the chief character Artemisia from a worthy voice to an agent for the propagation of infamy.

Modern revaluation of Restoration and eighteenth-century literature has helped Rochester's reputation as both man and poet: many of the nastier myths of his life have been exploded, his poetry has been reliably edited, and critical and scholarly studies have illuminated aspects of his intellectual context and poetic achievement. The Letter from Artemisia in the Town to Chloe in the Country (1679), however, has received...