Lord Rochester's Monkey

by Graham Greene

Book Overview

"Lord Rochester's Monkey" was written between 1931 and 1934 and, because of the reputation of its subject, the notorious Restoration libertine and poet, the book failed to find a publisher. Rochester... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670440558
• ISBN13: 9780670440559
• Release Date: September 1974
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam
• Length: 231 Pages
• Weight: 2.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Good

The one that has arrive later comparing it to the others I ordered, though it finally arrives. Nice book, and it looks like if it where older than me xD

Exquisitely Executed Literary Biography

In taking on the Rochester legend Greene has set himself a formidable task because Rochester exists primarily by virtue of his very unvirtuous reputation. At the time Greene set about researching Rochester his lyrics were virtually unread by all but Rochester and Restoration scholars because no general collection (let alone a scholarly edition) of his works existed in the 1930's. His poems were not readily available to the public and even students and scholars had to search the archives to find them (at Oxford his verses were kept in a special file that scholars had to ask for). And at the time Greene is writing his biography no one really wants anything to do with it; thus it went unpublished for forty years. This is not the first Rochester biography I have read. I've also read James William Johnson's A PROFANE WIT: The Life of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (2004). But each biographer, though dealing with the same bundle of anecdotes, letters, and texts really puts those things together in their own way. Each biographer chooses which episodes to stress and exactly how to stress them. Facts alone really do not tell us that much. A biography is really a chance for a scholar, or novelist in this case, to offer their version of a famous, or infamous, life. Johnson's biography has the benefit of having been written in a time when a considerable amount of research has been done on the life and writings of Rochester and so his own works builds upon that. Greene, however, is really starting from scratch and building from a very scant pile of Rochester research. As a result Johnsons life of Rochester is heavy on dates and facts (the research is impressive and exaustive) while Graham Green's life of Rochester is more intuitive. Johnson is the adamant and assiduous scholar and Greene the literary gentleman. Nonetheless Johnson does leave shcolarship behind at times when he ventures into the psychoanalytic which the author admits is highly speculative. This is where we find the advantage of Greene. Greene wrote his biography before the dogmas of Freud were readily accepted as fact. Thus with Greene you do not get the psychobabble, rather you get a very classic no-frills literary portrait. After reading both I find I prefer the Greene version of Rochester's life. Graham Greene offers a conflicted Rochester: a man that is in many ways both a product of his age and one of his age's greatest critics. Perhaps the most interesting conflict within the age and within Rochester himself was the one between Hobbist rationalism (which led to much of the cynicism in the poetry and drama of the time) and a continued interest in religion. Greene's Rochester is a man within whom the religious and philosophical battles of the day rage. And ultimately the victory goes to religion (though it might be more accurate to say that Rochester fought the battle to a draw). Rochester's death bed conversion is well known but what has not been examined is how thoroughly relig