Rochester "The Imperfect Enjoyment"

Gittel Aguilar
Discussion 1E

This poem first circulated in manuscript form but was actually published posthumously. The genre of the poem is associated with the 1670s. It involves a sexual encounter that is described as a battle of the sexes. Of course it comes as no surprise that in this battle, the woman loses—despite the fact that “The Imperfect Enjoyment” is a poem about premature ejaculation. Men are pictured as more powerful, and the fact that this sexual failure occurs is blamed on the woman for being “too beautiful” rather than on the man. The man is seen as a “martyr to love” who gets to revel in the glory of victory in this battle while the woman has to accept the fact that defeat is inevitable. Unlike other poems in this genre, however, this poem does feature a woman who is equal, dominant and who actually speaks. The woman gives orders, but does so using the tools of the man.

It can be argued that, because of these aforementioned representations, this poem makes the case that sexual identity is the more important form of identity. Certain words (i.e. “dissolve”) point to different forms of sexual identity: a man as powerful, having a crisis of self, and just having an unstable sexual identity. Furthermore, though this was not done in lecture, one could also analyze the sexual identity of the woman in the poem as well: is her dominance good or bad? Is she actually dominant? etc.