Puritans, Gossips and Bacchanalians

The poems of Rochester are overshadowed by the flamboyant life of its creator. Vivian de Sola Pinto, a biographer and editor of Rochester has tried to explain this mythical element to the reading of Rochester. He divides the readership of Rochester in three parts: the Puritans, the Baccachanalians, and the Gossips. Pinto believes that Rochester’s reputation and the publishing of his work has been subjugated to the various emphases of these three groups, who celebrate only certain sections of Rochester’s oeuvre, while ignoring others.

The Puritans have emphasized Rochester’s death-bed conversion and in the eighteenth and nineteenth century they wrote various works about this aspect of his life, works that bear titles such as The Libertine Overthrown and The Hazard of a Deathbed-Repentance.

The Bacchanalians have emphasized the pornographic poems that are attributed to Rochester and have published books such as The Singular Life, Amatory Adventures and Extraordinary Intrigues of John Wilmot, the Renowned Earl of Rochester.

Finally, the Gossips have controlled publications of Rochester’s works. He was one of the most controversial courtiers of Charles II. One of his contemporaries wrote in his memoirs that „this John made a great noise in the world for his noted, and professed atheisme, his lampoons and other frivolous stuffe; and a great noise after his death for his penitent departure“.