182 MICHIGAN QUARTERLY REVIEW
Both of these poems, and the subgenre to which they belong, bear
the title of "The Imperfect Enjoyment." The phrase "premature
ejaculation," which we commonly use to describe their subject,
derives from the psychoanalytic term ejaculatio praecox, which
already assumes a distinct male failure in measuring up to a standard of proper physio-psychological behavior, including demands of
service and performance. The use of the word "enjoyment," however, reflects the French exile of Charles II's court before the Restoration. It invokes the nuances of jouissance, not just pleasure in
general, but specifically sexual pleasure.
The little scholarship that exists about these poems tries to establish that there were French originals on which both Etherege and
Rochester draw. Etherege's poem was first published in 1672 and
Rochester's in 1680, after his death at the age of 33. But because they
had been circulated in manuscript, neither poem can be dated with
any precision. But we might generally date them to the early 1670s,
since that is when Rochester and Etherege exchanged other poems
whose dates are more certain, as well as the period when plays such
as Etherege's Man of Mode and Wycherley's The Country Wife,
with main characters modeled on Rochester, were first performed.
If 1672, say, is a possible year of composition, Rochester was 25 and
Etherege perhaps 37.6
In both of these poems the sexual situation enhances a sense of
immediacy, and so to follow their unfolding is vital to understanding
the forward thrust of the sexual-poetic effort. Here then is the first
half of Etherege's "Imperfect Enjoyment":
After a pretty amorous discourse,
She does resist my love with pleasing force,
Moved not with anger but with modesty:
Against her will she is my enemy.
Her eyes the rudeness of her arms excuse,
Those do accept what these seem to refuse;
To ease my passion and to make me blest,
The linen of itself falls from her breast;
Then with her lovely hands she does conceal
Those wonders chance so kindly did reveal.
In vain, alas, her nimble fingers strove
To keep her beauties from my greedy love;
Guarding her breasts, they do her lips expose,
To save a lily she must lose a rose.
