SOURCE: Hammond, Brean and Kewes, Paulina. “A Satyre Against Reason and Mankind from Page to Stage.” In That Second Bottle: Essays on John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, edited by Nicholas Fisher, pp. 133-52. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000.

In the following essay, Hammond and Kewes examine the impact of A Satire Against Mankind upon Restoration dramatists and claims that the poem should be understood in the context of the contemporary theater, especially considering its importance for the libertine debates of the 1670s, which were conducted through the medium of drama.

Rochester's A Satyre against Reason and Mankind, written in the earlier 1670s, is widely recognised as one of the formative poems of its decade and period.¹ By and large, interest in the poem has centred on its ideas. Editors and critics of Against Reason and Mankind have been concerned with establishing the philosophical, intellectual and religious contexts of...