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This Work Is Protected by Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Rights This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights and duplication or sale of all or part is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for research, private study, criticism/review or educational purposes. Electronic or print copies are for your own personal, non- commercial use and shall not be passed to any other individual. No quotation may be published without proper acknowledgement. For any other use, or to quote extensively from the work, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder/s. LIBERTINISM IN ENGLISH LITERATURE, v, 1650 - 1700 A thesis submitted to the .University of Keele by Alasdadr Muir Donaldson, . B.A., M.A., for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 1975 "Pleasure . is a dirty -word in a Christian culture. Pleasure is Satan’s word." (Lenny Bruce) ABSTRACT My thesis concerns libertine ideals of pleasure in English literature from the time of the Interregnum until about 1700. -Restoration comedy is omitted from the study, and so are such subsidiary libertine ideals as wit and honour. Libertinism has a religious and an irreligious phase, and the transition from one x ■ ». i « to the other occurs during the period studied. The Ranters in 1650 were anarchic spiritual libertines similar to the heretics of the middle ages. They represent an extreme form of that chiliastic enthusiasm which was for a short while strong in the English Commonwealth. After the Restoration, libertinism became the predominant aristocratic code,, especially from 1665 to 1680, but the reaction against it was already under way by the time the Society for the Reformation of Manners was formed in 1689. The story, then, is broadly that of the rise and decline of libertinism during ' * the period. By the turn of the century it was changing in character, becoming more consciously atheistic. The first Chapter describes libertinism in its religious phase, from the early Christian era until its death in Cromwell's England. Chapter II traces the origins of libertinism in its sceptical and naturalistic aspects from Montaigne and the French libertin poets nnd esprits forts, and show3 the French influence on Restoration society. The Don Juan theme is examined in plays by Molière and Shadwell, and the iconoclastic libertine "heroes" of Lee and Otway are also briefly looked at. Some attempt is made to assess how far the libertine's determinist philosophy is derived from Hobbes. The third Chapter deals with various types of Epicurean approaches to happiness - particularly the refined Epicureanism of St. Evreraond, Cowley and Temple. Dryden's translations are seen to set the tone for the erotic poetry of Aphra Behn and others. Wycherley's poems praising solitude and retirement provide a link with the ; f ■ si satirists who fora the bulk of the last two Chapters, Chapter IV deals with the Court Wits, selecting Rochester, Etherege and Sedley for detailed study. In the fifth Chapter, Oldham and various minor satirists are seen to follow Rochester's example in making libertine themes the subject of their satires. The conclusion briefly indicates the way in which libertine themes are important in the eighteenth century. PREFACE This work evolved from my M.A. dissertation, "The Notorious Colonel Charteris", a study of an eighteenth century rake whom the Augustan satirists used as an exemplum of vice. Having started from the milieu in which Charteris operated, I felt the need to clarify it by reference to an earlier period, when the 4 • i .. ' libertine ideal had not been degraded to the point1bf bestiality represented by Charteris. Hence the research covers mainly the Restoration and late seventeenth century, although to strengthen its validity some reference to the earlier seventeenth century and also to the eighteenth century was necessary. Limitations of time and space meant that only the libertine ideal of pleasure could be studied fully. 'While this is what most readers would readily think of as being quintessentially libertine, there are additional ideals, and I hope that my research ■«ill enable other students of the period to appreciate and pursue further some of the other constituents of libertinism, such as wit and honour. I have had to omit scepticism and to some extent naturalism, for the same reason, as being also too wide. Therefore in a sense this piece of work is only a start, and plenty remains to be done on the subject. I make no apology for including much that is of very minor literary merit, to the exclusion of extended discussion of some major poets, notably Dryden. Only in this way can the great poets be properly appreciated, and another scholar will no doubt rectify my omissions. iii This work is a synthesis, and so does not often say strikingly original things. The extensive reading necessary for such a broad survey has meant that each chapter ha3 tended to be built around one or two key sources. In order to'reduce excessive footnoting I have made a blanket acknowledgement in some cases. With this proviso, however, all statements other than platitudes are m/ own. i I owe an inestimable debt of'gratitude to my wife, Lucy, without whose support and encouragement the work would never have been completed. My sister, Rona, has saved us hours of frustration by typing the thesis. I am eternally grateful.. The role of my supervisor, Frank Doherty, has been still more important. He has never failed to provide inspiration when it has been most needed, and I have always found my failing genial spirits replenished by an hour in his company. I extend my thanks also to Roger Pooley for reading my first Chapter, which covers an area not in my major field of interest. Finally, a word of thanks to the ‘ \ staff of the Libraries of Keele, Leicester and Cambridge Universities who in their different ways have helped to make life easier. CONTENTS PREFACE ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I LIBERTINISM IN ITS RELIGIOUS PHASE 1 The Heresy of the Free Spirit 8 2 The Ranters and other sects 9 " 3 Conclusion ‘ 63 CHAPTER II THE PREMISES OF RESTORATION LIBERTINISM 1 Le'libertinage 69 2 French influence in England 75 3 The existing scholarship 79 4- Don Juan: Molière and Shadwell 82 5 Lee, Otway and Nero 113 6 Sources of the libertine's determinist , arguments 118 CHAPTER III EPICUREANISM 1 Epicureanism and Epicurism 129 2 St. Evremond 133 3 Cowley 1lfO V Temple 155 5 The amorous bower 162 CHAPTER IV THE HEYDAY OF LIBERTINISM 1 The milieu of the Court Wits 176 2 Rochester: the paradigm case 186 - iv - 3 Etherege: the rake unreformed 232 4 Sedley: the moderate libertine 239 CHAPTER V SATIRICAL USES OF LIBERTINISM 1 John Oldham * 253 2 "Characters” and Hudibrastics 300 3 Reformation of Manners * 3^0 CONCLUSION 338 REFERENCES 346 B l B L I O & R A m 372 l i s t o f abbreviations CSPD Calendar of State Papers Domestic PNB Dictionary of National Biography EIC Essays in Criticism ELH ELH. A Journal of English Literary History m Huntingfcm. Library Quarterly HMC Historical Manuscript Commission Reports’ > ■ t I* JEG-P Journal of English and Germanic Philology MLN Modern Language Notes Modem Language Quarterly MP M o d e m Philology Publications of the Modern Langruage Association of America Poems on Affairs of State (Yale edition, 1963) 2a Philological Quarterly RES Review of English Studies > RLC Revue de littérature comparée SP Studies In Philology TLS (London) Times Literary Supplement VI IOTRODUCTION Libertinism has two aspects: freedom of thought in religion, and moral laxity. Both are characterised by an aberration from the orthodox position of the church, the former in terms of ideas, * the latter from the point of view of behaviour. Each aspect is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for libertinism. Free thought which does not result in immoral behaviour will not concern ■r ■ ■ i .* me; neither will licentiousness which is accompanied by no •V theoretical justification. One belongs to the realm of "pure" ideas, the other to that of "pure" biography. My method will rather be to elucidate and draw on both these areas. In all the important manifestations of libertinism they are in fact closely related. There are also two phases in the history of libertinism. (The pre-Christian era is excluded from this study, although libertines ■«ere often compared to debauchees of the ancient world, such as Nero.) From its beginnings in early Christianity, through the earlier part of the seventeenth century, libertinism was a heresy. From the late seventeenth century until it died in the French Revolution it became a more conscious revolt against Christianity itself. Whereas the libertine always defied the eternal punishments which the orthodox said would follow his blasphemies or actions, in this later period his defiance tended to involve a more systematic denial that such punishments existed. The [Restoration marks the crucial stage in this transition. It is therefore essential to view the years immediately preceding it, in order to see the continuity which exists at the level of both ideas and actions, the 2 contrast being in the motive for them, not in their results. The parallels have hitherto been somewhat obscured, largely owing to the practice, in literary and historical studies, of making rather artificial dichotomies. It is a considerable oversimplification, for example, to imagine that literature changed overnight with .* Charles II’s Restoration, that the Augustan Age was born in 1660. In order to counteract such assumptions, I have included both phases of libertinism in this study, instead of starting it the Restoration and ignoring what went-before, I hope that the fresh insights which this method might reveal will compensate for the flaws resulting from it: the thesis is rather off-balance (about four parts to one in favour of post-1660 libertines); and its emphasis changes from a predominantly historical one in the first part to one in subsequent chapters where the shifting centres of gravity are primarily literary.
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