Obsession Part III

These are two of the clearest examples in Rochester's poetry of how he contemplates the role of the author in his society. He sees the author as providing entertainment to the populace and being scorned for it. Most interestingly, he emphasizes the danger that authors pose to society, creating a "threatening doubt" in the minds of the readers that the author's descriptions of life might well be true. At the same time, the author is not only hated and feared, but also enjoyed and then kicked out of doors. A "fiddle of the town" is surely one of the saddest epigraphs that an author has given himself.

Yet, Rochester is unable to give up writing poetry and satirizing his fellow citizens. It is in his blood. In a letter to his friend, Henry Savile, written in July of 1678, he describes a satire that he is planning on writing, and says:

this, I take it, would be a most excellent way of celebrating the memories of my most pocky fiends, companions and mistresses. But it is a miraculous thing (as the wise have it) when a man half in the grave cannot leave of playing the fool and the buffoon.