Lovers, rakes, and rogues: Amatory, merry, and bawdy verse from 1580 to 1830

by John Wardroper

Book by

Genres: Poetry, History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Mark Desrosiers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nasty, horny, and hilarious. A revelation too: some of these poems and songs are quite adept at balancing complex metaphysical conceits on their arse while at the same time turning on their raging-drunk singalong audience. Though it's divided into three massive thematic sections (Love's joys, loves pains; Rakes and wantons; and Merriments, mockings, and miseries), I had trouble telling where compiler John Wardroper drew his distinctions. Also, his annotations could use some work. It's pretty clear, for example, that Faith, wench, I cannot court was written by either John Davies or Christopher Marlowe (probably the latter), but Wardroper prefers to keep "anonymous" texts anonymous. That's my only quibble. If you're into groovy pre-Romantic poems about the "Lass with the Velvet Arse" ("which made her for to bounce and vapour"), this is the collection for you!