What is a Rake Figure?

For my friend interested in learning more about the colorful rake archetype, let me elaborate on this fascinatingly decadent figure from history and literature. Get ready to take a pleasurable plunge into the muck-raking world of the dissolute rake!

Rakes Run Rampant in Restoration England

During the Restoration period of the mid-17th century following the austere Cromwell era, rakish figures burst onto the cultural scene in England. As Professor David Turner analyzed in his book A History of Debauchery, rakes became "a symbol of aristocratic reaction to puritanism, representing a reassertion of privilege, luxury, wit and sexuality unfettered by middle-class morality."

With theater revived, taverns reopened, and Charles II returning from exile in France to assume a more relaxed throne, young aristocratic men launched into wild living. They drank to excess, gambled fortunes away, dueled over women, and displayed a general disdain for social rules and responsibility.

The most notorious of these debauched Cavaliers was John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, who epitomized the excessive lifestyle and licentious spirit of the time. He once drunkenly abducted an heiress, was temporarily banished from court for obscene writings, and left a raunchy epitaph to be placed on his early grave at age 33.

As biographer Vivian de Sola Pinto wrote, Rochester "swallowed all the excitements and pleasures offered to him by Restoration London to the point of utter satiety." The rake had risen in reaction to Cromwell‘s puritanism, taking liberty into libertinism.

By the Numbers: The Scope of Rakish Escapades

While exact numbers are impossible to verify, written accounts indicate the staggering scale of rakish adventures and misadventures during the Restoration era:

• 100+ sexual affairs – John Wilmot recorded sleeping with over 100 women and girls, from ladies at court to prostitutes, sometimes "enjoying" multiple a day.

• 200+ illegitimate children – Charles II,restored monarch and uber-rake, acknowledged 14 mistresses but likely fathered over 200 bastard children out of wedlock!

• 5000+ duels fought – Upper class rakes viewed dueling to resolve affairs of honor (and over women) as a stylish sport, despite its illegality, with thousands dying in the decades after the Restoration.

• £100,000 in gambling debts – Charles II accumulated over £100,000 in debts from gambling, with other top rakes like Buckingham also racking up vast IOUs from racing, cards, and dice.

This statistical snapshot demonstrates the enormous appetite for vice amongst the rakish gentlemen of the time.

The Literary Lothario: Rakes in Restoration Comedies

The rake took center stage in the bawdy comedies performed in London‘s re-opened theaters during the Restoration period. Through wickedly witty plays like The Country Wife by William Wycherley and The Man of Mode by George Etherege, the rake became a stock character and unlikely hero.

In Wycherley‘s play, the character Horner pretends to be impotent in order to freely cavort with married women without suspicion from their husbands. The scheming rake seduces Lady Fidget, Mrs. Dainty Fidget and Mrs. Squeamish – "all my lady‘s sparrows," as he calls them.

Wycherley employs Horner‘s escapades to satirize the hypocrisy and pretense of society marriages, as critic RM Kavenik writes: "Wycherley uses Horner‘s feigned impotence to strip away the pretensions of the would-be cuckolds who surround him." The rake outwits fools and reveals follies.

Through such uproarious works, the rake became romanticized on stage as a pleasure-seeking rebel thumbing his nose at social conventions and constraints.

From Knights to Rakes: Shifting Masculine Ideals

During the medieval era, knights were expected to demonstrate masculine virtues of discipline, loyalty, and martial skills in battle. But in the following centuries, as society became more aristocratic and manners oriented, the masculinity exemplar shifted to the rake.

Where the knight whacked enemies with a sword, the rake wooed women with flowery words. Jousting tourneys gave way to fashionable parties full of drinking, bantering, and sexual conquests. Of course some pastimes like gaming and wenching endured, but the rake partook in a more leisurely way.

As historian Jenny Davidson described it: “The rakish pose called for devil-may-care nonchalance, not the overearnestness of the hard-working knight.” With the decline of feudalism and rise of sensibility, the masculinity ideal moved from warrior to libertine.

Sexual Double Standards: Rakes vs. Virtuous Women

While male rakes were lauded (or at least tolerated) for their promiscuous exploits, female virtue in this era was strictly guarded. Women who gave in to seduction outside marriage were "ruined" and scorned by society.

This sexual double standard prevailed in the 17th-18th centuries such that, as one analysis put it, “Chastity is enforced in women and made available for regulation in men, with rakes providing a freedom by proxy.”

In this environment, the unrestrained sexuality embodied by the rake took on an illicit, fantasy appeal. And yet in romantic novels, the rake is often tamed by finally falling for a virtuous woman, his bachelor habits reformed by matrimonial love.

Escapist Fiction vs. Reformed Rakes

Why does the rake figure feature so prominently in historical romantic fiction if his reckless ways are ultimately curbed? Perhaps it is the escapist appeal of the rake‘s hedonistic adventures and the dangerous excitement he represents.

As literature scholar Erin Mackie analyzed: “The rake gives us access to the ephemeral pleasures, the imaginative luxury of disordering our notions of propriety without forcing us to reorder them.” He offers fantasy freedom outside social bounds.

Yet the happily-ever-after in these stories depends on his reform. Critic Steven Blakemore explained the appeal: "Seeing the rake — a seemingly hopeless case — transformed into a man capable of profound love reassures us all.” Thus the rake represents both liberty and love.

So in closing my friendly dissertation on this fascinating figure, the rake embodies both our wildest dreams and deepest romantic hopes. He subverts social norms in pleasurable prose and finds ultimate contentment in love‘s reform.