The shock value of John Wilmot, earl of Rochester

‘The Maidenhead’

Have you not in a chimney seen
A sullen faggot wet and green,
How coyly it receives the heat,
And at both ends does fume and sweat?

So fares it with the harmless maid
When first upon her back she’s laid;
But the well-experienced dame,
Cracks and rejoices in the flame.

Rochester is a favourite of A-level students because he writes about sex and uses rude words. That in itself would not make him an accomplished poet. Sex is not an obscure subject and there are lots of words which rhyme with ‘prick’. But there are good reasons to read Rochester. One is that he had a knack for creating effects which we have come to associate with literary authenticity and originality.

The invention of what we recognise today as a modern poetic voice is impossible to pin down.