SOURCE: Berglund, Lisa. “The Language of Libertines: Subversive Morality in The Man of Mode.” SEL: Studies in English Literature 30, no. 3 (summer 1990): 369-86.

In the essay below, Berglund explores how Dorimant and his retinue use a “libertine language” of extended metaphors and analogies to subvert conventional morality in The Man of Mode.

When the practical but unhelpful maid Pert advises her mistress to renounce Dorimant, Mrs. Loveit defends her devotion by indicting her tormentor's paradoxical nature. “I know he is a devil,” she cries, “but he has something of the angel yet undefaced in him, which makes him so charming and agreeable that I must love him, be he never so wicked” (II.ii.15-17).¹ Critics of Etherege's The Man of Mode suffer similar distress when faced with Dorimant, who, though the hero, is after all a damned libertine. He maintains three mistresses, treats them all shamefully, interrupts an...