According to the Webster’s Dictionary a man who practices libertinism, or a libertine, is one who is sexually promiscuous or, more generally, is unrestrained by convention or morality. One individual who fell within this category was John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, whom we are looking at in class. Rochester “distinguished himself as ‘the man who has the most wit and the least honor in England’” (Lipking). He was renowned for “his practical jokes, his affairs, and his dissipation” (Lipking). One such event involved him abducting the heiress Elizabeth Malet, an act that saw him imprisoned in the Tower of London. This philosophy of libertinism was not limited to personal life. Often Rochester aimed his wit at individuals such as John Dryden and the King, Charles II.
“Libertine.”
Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster,
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/libertine.
Lipking,
Lawrence, and James Noggle. The Norton
Anthology English Literature. 9th ed., C, W.W. Norton & Company, 2012.
Neufeldt,
Victoria, and Andrew N Sparks, editors. Webster's
New World Dictionary. Simon and Schuster, 1986.
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