Libertines Real and Fictional in Rochester, Shadwell, Wycherley, and Boswell Page: 68

The Satiric Libertine
The Libertine satirizes libertines whose blatant misinterpretations of Hobbesian
philosophy result in their endorsement of their own versions of libertinism. Moreover, the play
satirizes the extreme, anti-Hobbesian libertinism Don John endorses. In other words, the
"exaggerated portraits" of libertinism Chernaik identifies applies to Don John's
(mis)interpretation of libertinism and not necessarily to conventional libertinism itself (Chernaik
27).
Generically, critics categorize The Libertine as a tragedy; however, the play clearly
qualifies as a satiric tragicomedy that calls extreme, anarchic libertinism into question.
Additionally, the supernatural elements-i.e., the animation of the statue of Don Pedro (Don
John's father) and his appearance at the libertines' supper and the Devils that open the ground
that swallows Don John and his friends in the final scene-exemplify a burlesque quality that
lampoons conventional tragedy. During the banquet scene or the scene in which the ghost
appears to the libertines at supper, the libertines, unlike similar scenes in which ghosts appear to
the living and humans obey the ghosts' warnings, do not heed the warnings of the ghost and do
not take the paranormal or supernatural seriously. They ridicule the Ghost and refuse to listen to
his warnings because doing so would imply that they are powerless to change their fates. That is,
the Dons would have to admit to a lack of control over a situation and to powerlessness. In fact,
Esther Menasce refers to Don John as "a symbolic embodiment of evil, a paradigmatic figure
acting in a surrealistic nowhere" (Menasce 11). Though her identification of Don John as
personified evil is arguably an exaggerated assessment of him, Menasce makes a valid point
about him.
As not only the epitome of self-indulgence, selfishness, and "evil," but as a libertine

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