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Rochester and the pursuit of pleasure provides a reading of Rochester' s poems, dramatic works, and letters in a biographical context. In doing so, it sheds light on a central vexed issue in Rochester criticism, the relationship of the poet to his speaker. It also reveals that Rochester' s work clusters about a central theme, the pursuit of pleasure, a pursuit motivated by a courtship of purity that grew out of Rochester' s Christian and God-fearing upbringing. This rhetoric of courtship, in turn, reveals the unity of Rochester' s work as the courtier and his various personae try to persuade his audiences, secular and divine, of his worth. |
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