Reading Response to Hobbs, Wilmot, and Behn

“A Perfect Diurnal of Some Passages in Parliament” describes Charles I’s execution day. Charles gives a speech in which he lays out his case as innocent victim: he is innocent, he never began a war with the two houses of Parliament, he never intended to encroach upon their privileges, Parliament confessed the Militia was his, and despite these facts, Charles forgives everyone. I admit that I am quite suspect about the validity of the piece. Did the execution go down exactly as recited? I am suspect because it seems that it was common for the dominant authority to create “death-bed” (or “death-scaffold”) confessions and reaffirm the deceased’s commitment to God. For example, we read many execution-day confessions of pirates in Dan William’s class that were obviously formulaic, and there is John Wilmot’s death bed conversion that, from my understanding, few scholars believe. I do believe that Charles I gave a speech, and it probably was very similar to the one written down; however, I just wonder how accurate it could be in an era without recording equipment other than the pen. On the other hand, I see no motive in his declaration of his innocence; I guess it depends upon the political sympathies of the recorder.

I thought Thomas Hobbes was very interesting. During long walks I sometimes listen to recordings about philosophy, and I often hear Hobbes’ name mentioned. I’m glad I was able to read some of his work and put him into prospective. From the biography and his writings, I can see that fear has an important role in his philosophy, and I can see this influence in John Wilmot’s writings as well (Wilmot’s “A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind” 139-143). Hobbes’ “Natural Condition of Mankind” appears to me to be really pessimistic about the natural state of mankind. He argues that men by natural are equal, but when they both want the same things, they become enemies. In the end, they will destroy one another. If one man is secure in his home, he must be aware that another man will try to come and take it away, which is ironic, because he states that man uses war to secure himself—but it seems that man can never be secure. Therefore, man must work hard, build a dominion over other men, and use those men to protect himself in order to maintain his existence. He also argues that man must protect himself by guarding his family and possessions, but in doing this, he accuses mankind of being evil. Finally, he concludes that without a common power, there is no law and no justice, “Force and Fraud are in war with the cardinal virtues” (8). It all seems like a terrible, vicious cycle.

John Wilmot, who read Hobbes (Griffin 20), writes in “A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind” that it is better to be an animal (a monkey) than a man. In his poem, he describes the pride of thinking (reason) as unnatural, and that it makes life less enjoyable. At the same time, he argues that there are two kinds of “reason,” the good “true” kind and the evil kind, which he despises (112). True reason reasons by sense (the five senses), which Hobbes also taught (99). He evokes Hobbes’ philosophy about the nature of man when he asks “Which is the basest Creature, Man or Beast?” (128). He answers his own question by pointing out that “But Savage Man alone does Man betray” (130), which mirrors Hobbes’ thoughts about the savage cycle of man and war: man must make war in order to have peace.

Dustin Griffin, in his book Satires Against Man, explains that Wilmot’s poem was also influenced by Pliny’s Natural History. Pliny writes that:

In fine, all other living creatures pass their time worthily among their own species . . . fierce lions do not fight among themselves, the serpent’s bit attacks not serpents, even the monsters of the sea and the fishes are cruel only against different species; whereas to man, I vow, most of his evils come from his fellow-man. (qtd. in Griffin 159)

I learned from Griffin that Wilmot read and was influenced in his writing by not only Pliny and Hobbes, but Boileau and Menander’s Crato as well. For instance, view the following similarities between Crato and Wilmot. Crato imagines that:

If some god should come up to me and say: ‘Crato, you, after your death, shall again have being anew and you shall be whatsoever you desire – a dog, sheep, goat, man, horse – for you have to live twice. This is decreed. Choose what you prefer.’ Forthwit, methinks, I’d say: ‘Make me anything but human.’ (qtd. in Griffin 150).

Here is what Wilmot writes in his “Satyr”:

Were I (who to my cost already am / One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man) / A spirit free to choose, for my own share, / What case of flesh and blood i pleased to wear, / I’d be a dog, a monkey, or a bear, / Or anything but that vain animal / Who is so proud of being rational.

By reading this addition source, I broadened my scope of ancient Greek dramatists (specifically because I had to “Google” them in order to understand their significance). I also learned a new word, Theriophily:

a word coined in 1933 by George Baos to name a complex of ideas which express an admiration for the ways and character of the animals. Theriophilists have asserted with various emphases that the beasts are (1) as rational as men, or less rational than men but better off without reason, or more rational than men; (2) that they are happier than men, in that Nature is a mother to them but a cruel stepmother to us; (3) that they are more moral than men. (Dictionary)

I also enjoyed reading the poetry of Aphra Behn. “The Disappointment” fit in our readings with Wilmot very well—both wrote about premature ejaculation, sexual promiscuity, and the pain of sex. I also found that she has a beautiful way, like Wilmot, of turning very intricate phrases, “But Charming Cloris, you too meanly prize / The more deserving Glories of your Eyes” (“To My Lady Morland at Tunbridge 40-41). In the poem to Morland, the speaker seems to admire Morland and finds her “too good for her faithless lover” (Mermin 345). The speaker advices Morland how to get the best of Amynthas, whose love the speaker lost to Moreland. She admits that she does not blame the man for falling for Morland, but she does seem to accuse him of misrepresenting himself to her (the speaker), “The Reverend Man who Age and Mystery / Had rendered Youth and Beauty Vanity, / By fatal Chance casting his Eyes your way, / Mistook the duller Business of the Day, / Forgot the Gospel, and began to Pray.” I’m not sure that I am right, but I take this to mean that Amynthas had proclaimed to the speaker that he was above youth and beauty—being an enlightened man—but immediately falls for a younger, more beautiful woman. This poem is unique in that it displaces heterosexual love in favor of female solidarity (Merin 345).
Works Cited
Behn, Alphra. British Literature: An Anthology. Ed. Robert Demaria. Malden: Backwell,
2001. 225-45.
Ferguson, Moira. First Feminists: British Women Writers, 1578-1799. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1985.
Griffin, Dustin. Satires Against Man: The Poems of Rochester. Berkeley: U of California P, 1973.
Mermin, Dorothy. “Women becoming Poets: Katherine Phillips, Aphra Behn, Anne
Fitch.” ELH 57 (1990): 335-55.
“Theriophily.” Dictionary of the History of Ideas. 2003. University of Virginia Library. 3 February 2008 .
Wilmot, John. British Literature: An Anthology. Ed. Robert Demaria. Malden:
Blackwell, 2001. 279-96.