John Wilmot was a courtier of King Charles II during the Restoration period. He was a witty entertainer and learned poet who charmed the monarch. It was the period when the whole of England was reacting against Puritan austerity and spiritualism. John Wilmot emerged on the lines of Cavalier poets, supporting the monarch and satirizing the clergy. He indulged himself in excesses, being a womanizer, alcoholic, and addicted to immoral behavior, he became famous as a rake and died at the young age of 33. He was a well-learned poet who wrote some good works. His contemporary poet Andrew Marvell described him as the ‘best English satirist.’ In 1674, he wrote a poem titled A Satyre Against Reason and Mankind which became his most popular and successful work. In this poem, he offers support for his rakish behavior while satirizing the logical lifestyle in particular and the whole of mankind in particular. He expresses himself as a natural being, an animal dependent on his instincts, and suggests that the five senses a human possesses are superior to the sixth sense that man devises as reason or logic. While trying to satirize reason, the poet uses his own reasoning and suggests that his reason is natural and thus, is better than the false reason humans devise to declare what is good or bad. Wilmont says that ability to use reason or logic makes men compare themselves to God, thus, relying upon logic is actually blasphemous. He also stresses that as mankind gives up their natural instincts in favor of reason, they become baser and tend to exploit each other for no understandable reason. When animals prey on each other it is justifiable because it is out of necessity for food, but there is no way to vindicate men for attacking one another. A Satyre Against Reason and Mankind is not a monologue as Wilmont introduces an adversary to the poet who is a clergyman and like the Anglican Christians of that period, believes that moral certainty could be reached with the aid of reason.
It is a lengthy poem with 22 lines arranged in stanzas of varying lengths. The general format is rhyming couplets while the lines depart from rhyming couplets at some points. The poem strongly appears to support the ideas of Hobbes and Montaigne and other materialistic and libertine philosophers like Lucretius and Epicurus.
Summary of A Satyre Against Reason and Mankind
The poem begins as
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 sort 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.
This sets the poet’s position who believes that animals live a superior life to humans and suggests that mankind is the worst, and the reason for this is the too much pride in humans for being rational. Man believes that his rational faculty is superior to the natural instincts that he can understand through his five senses and depends on his power of logic to guide his actions. He ignores "light of nature, sense, behind" and instead "Pathless and dangerous wand'ring ways" takes. He stumbles from one thought to the next and finally falls "Into Doubt's boundless sea where, like to drown, / Books bear him up awhile," keeping man afloat through "bladders of Philosophy."
However, the poet claims that actions based on instincts are swifter and better while when man indulges himself in reasoning, he losses precious time as he is mortal. The poet says that man tries to evade the fact that he has to die and uses reason as a tool against his mortal being, "In hopes still to o'ertake the escaping light." However, death is inevitable and it occurs more grotesquely, “Then old age and experience, hand in hand, Lead him to death, make him to understand, After a search so painful, and so long, That all his life he has been in the wrong.”
In this third stanza, the poet chides himself too. John Wilmont was a wit, a jester, and a public performer. He says that as the ability to reason filled men with pride, it "drew him in, as cheats their bubbles catch,” which makes him curious to find knowledge and that wisdom ruins his happiness. His ability to think makes him witty and that ensues a "frivolous pretense / Of pleasing others, at his own expense," as wits are like whores. Being a wit himself, the poet expected a similar fate as a whore. The crowd enjoys a wit’s performance and claps for him, but that isn’t the affection for the wit. It's like men enjoy whores in bed but won’t commit to them. While a wit provides momentary pleasure, once that pleasure has subsided, what remains is hatred. Thus, the poet criticizes reason as a false sense created to overrule the less delicate five senses; it is a sense created out of–and to serve–pride. He compares a wise man and a wit as examples of futility and wasted life. He explains that a wit or a performer is clapped by a crowd, "'Tis not that they're beloved, but fortunate, / And therefore what they fear, at heart they hate." He emphasizes fear at many other points in the poem and makes a point that while it is believed that reason can make you free of reason, the reality is just different, your ability to reason promotes fear.
In the fifth stanza, the poet introduces his adversary, a clergyman who opposes his idea and tries to defend reason, making it a debate. " 'What rage torments in your degenerate mind, / To make you rail at reason, and mankind.'" The clergyman claims that reason dignifies man and makes him better than beasts. He asks the poet to remember that man was made in God’s image, was given an eternal soul, and “this fair frame in shining reason dressed /To dignify his nature above beast.” He says that God gifted man with rational faculty to "take a flight beyond material sense" and "Dive into mysteries, then soaring pierce / The flaming limits of the universe." The poet then argues that he is willing to relent if his adversary can name a single person worthy of being called “reasonable.” He then offers many examples of such people who according to the poet, represents false reason and says "This supernatural gift that makes a mite / Think he's an image of the infinite."
The poet then claims that such a belief that reason is the supreme gift is an artificial argument to substantiate a man’s pride that tempts him to feel like God. "A whimsical philosopher / Before the spacious world his tub prefer," the poet attacks the popular idea of Diogenes that one practices virtue by resisting all pleasure. The poet says that for this false notion, many retire from life simply to think, but that thought should be "given for action's government," and to cease action results in impertinence. Thus "Our sphere of action is life's happiness, / And he that thinks beyond thinks like an ass."
In the next stanza, the poet suggests that his own reason for considering his natural five senses superior to reason is right and vows to obey it, as it is distinguished from false reasoning by sense, giving "us rules of good and ill" and boundaries for "desires, with a reforming will / To keep 'em more in vigour, not to kill."
In the next stanza, the speaker again attacks those who consider themselves reasonable and wise. He says that wise men attain reason "By surest means." Here, the poet attacks a contemporary adversary politician Sir Thomas Meres, who was a prominent Whig Party member. The poet compares him to a dog and suggests that a hound may be more reasonable than him who considers himself wise. The poet again describes the superiority of beasts over mankind and says that a beast kills only for practical reasons, while, a man lacks any reason for the various atrocities he commits. Man betrays his fellow man through fear.
Not through necessity, but wantonness.
For hunger or for love they [beasts] bite, or tear,
Whilest wretched man is still in arms for fear.
For fear he arms, and is of arms afraid:
From fear, to fear, successively betrayed.
Base fear, the source whence his best passions came.
His boasted honour, and his dear-bought fame
At the end of the poem, the poet offers a chance for himself to be proven wrong, but only if a just man can be found. This idea of a “just man” doesn’t suggest that the poet believes that mankind can improve, but rather it is him supporting his own argument because he knows that this man does not exist, nor can ever exist. The ending lines are "If such there are, yet grant me this at least, / Man differs more from man than man from beast." The poet suggests that a just man cannot exist, and if it ever appears, then it will be observed that he, the just man differs from the current mankind more than he differs from the beast. Again, the poet claims that a “just man” will be more like an animal rather than mankind having pride in their reason.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the History of English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards.
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