"Rage at last confirms me impotent" (Rochester). How far is obscenity in Rochester's work motivated by disquiet with the world at large, and how successful is Rochester's ribaldry in fulfilling its satiric purpose?Rochester's poetry has been denounced by many as obscene and immoral. Samuel Johnson condemned his work and said that he lived and wrote "with an avowed contempt of decency and order, a total disregard to every moral, and a resolute denial of every religious observation." However, he is not without his admirers. Hazlitt respected his work, and remarked that "his contempt for everything that others respect almost amounts to sublimity". It is true that Rochester's work contains voluminous amounts of obscene language and metaphor. But this is not without reason, and does not mean his poetry is a light hearted and rude collection by a man who cared greatly for a debauched lifestyle. Frequently, the poetry contains an often very dark view of life in the Court (despite Rochester's active participation in the courtly way of living), and some extremely clever and appropriate satire on King Charles II and the members of his court. The obscenity could be viewed as simply that - obscenity for the sake of it, but this may not be the case. There seems to be underlying feelings beneath the surface of the language, which reflect a dissatisfied soul observing the events around him. The question of the success of his ribaldry is one that requires a good deal of thought, as it is not always the bawdy poems that convey best the satire that Rochester aims for.One of Rochester's poems - a Song about Cloris - at first seems to be merely a poem about simple virtues, with humble characters found in the countryside. However, upon further inspection, this poem is a satirical parody of the epic poems of Homer with a considerably darker side than first imagined. It also contains some strange ideas concerning the psyches of women. The idea in the poem t...
