"So Idle a Rogue
The life and death of Lord Rochester" by Jeremy Lamb

I finished this reading this book a couple of years ago, during my absinthe and crazy poetry phase, after seeing the movie with Johnny Depp. It was an amazing experience to read how modern in thought a 17th century poet could be. The irreverent John Wilmot, Lord Rochester (1647-1680) was born in the age of libertinism, a reaction to Calvinism/puritanism. Puritanism carried on in America (see Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel "The scarlet letter" as a description of that), it seems while England enjoyed an age of freedom, hedonism and decadence, at least for a little while. John Wilmot was, it seems, King Charles II's favourite critic. Sometimes he drove it too far and was banned from court or even thrown into prison (for insulting the king, as far as I remember), but King Charles II always forgave him and reinstalled him in court.
John Wilmot started out as a very sensitive, intelligent, idealistic youth, but lost his illusions when he was sent into battle, eventually, after experiencing the reckless hedonism and decadence at King Charls II's court, he turned into a cynic. Not that he did not join in the orgies, the sex, the drinking bacchanals and all that, but he also wrote poetry about it which shows his attitude.
The book describes his slow descent into alcoholism, decadence and disease. He finally died of syphilis and several other venereal diseases he had contracted from prostitutes, in combination with alcoholism, mainly an addiction to absinthe. The last month of his life he was constantly drunk for 30 days.
I finally had to stop reading the book because, as we all know, one starts to identify with the hero of a book after reading it intensely, after a while, and I could feel myself descending and spiraling into a dark murky and sinister abyss of decadance and depression, and started to wonder if a glass of wine or two a day would make me an alcoholic...; )
But I treasure many of the things he said, and here I will give you two parts of his poems:

Trust not the thing called woman: she is worse
Than all the ingredients crammed into a curse.
Were she but ugly, peevish, proud, a whore,
Poxed, painted, perjured, so she were no more,
I could forgive her, and connive at this,
Alleging still she but a woman is.
But she is worse: in time she will forestall
The devil, and be the damning of us all.
******************

But mark what creatures women are:
How infinitely vile, when fair!