arles II. The Fall and The Imperfect Enjoyment are examples of his work, which are obscene but let the reader know how he feels about certain things - the way his mind works. Imperfect Enjoyment for example, goes through several changes in register. It begins as a romantic and amorous poem, with many metaphors to disguise the fact he is talking about making love:"Her nimble tongue, Love's lesser lightning, playedWithin my mouth and to my thoughts conveyedSwift orders that I should prepare to throwThe all-dissolving thunderbolt below..."('The Imperfect Enjoyment" 7-10)The poem then becomes more explicit as Rochester gets angry with himself for his lack of performance, and uses some lewd language to describe the woman, referring to her as a "cunt", while he insists on trying to carry on what he has begun, with his "dead cinder". The poem then changes again, becoming more political than romantic - a complete change from how it was begun. This once again highlights Rochester's pessimism and dissatisfaction. These beliefs also highlight how others felt at the time, even if they chose not to write what they were truly feeling so as not to offend. Rochester was not like this - he was content to show his poems to only a small circle in their unexpurgated forms rather than to rewrite them in order to make money from them, unlike poets such as Dryden. In this way, he is to be admired, and it is easy to understand why people such as Hazlitt respected him. Through the use of obscenity, Rochester actually makes some good points in poems such as Satyr and A Satyr Against King Charles II. Although it takes a certain amount of interpretation, he can be seen to be successful in his use of obscenity in satire, although he has proved that he does not always need to take this route to write an effective and biting satirical poem. In fact, the indecency at times gives them a 'school boy humour' quality, which takes away some of the credibility which may ha...
