The Contemporary Reception of Rochester's A Satyr against Mankind

Abstract

A Satyr against Mankind, with its wide literary and philosophical background, was Rochester's most influential work during his lifetime, and it has survived in more manuscripts than any other poem by him. This article begins by indicating the extensiveness of its impact, in terms of both the sporadic verbal echoes and allusions in Restoration poetry and plays and the responses it evoked, for example, in the Church, through its broader context of defending a heterodox position. Against this background, a detailed examination is made of the four surviving verse answers to the poem: Edward Pococke's An Answer to the Satyr against Mankind, Thomas Lessey's A Satyr. In Answer to the Satyr against Man, and the two anonymous responses An answer to a Sat[?yr against R]eason & Mankind and An Answer to the Satyr, Against Man. Neither the full version of Lessey's poem nor the first of the anonymous responses has been published previously, and transcripts are therefore provided as appendices. These four replies, which vary in scope and length, are shown to cast an unexpectedly valuable light on Rochester's reputation during the last quarter of the seventeenth century.