Just don't expect me to vomit sunshine about the Libertine

Allow me to be frank at the commencement. You will not like me. The gentlemen will be envious and the ladies will be repelled. You will not like [this blog post] now and you will like [it] a good deal less as we go on.

So much meaning was twisted into this monologue and Wilmot built so much anticipation that I was disappointed to have to struggle so much to expose any kind of literary significance in the Libertine. However, one of the few themes I did manage to absorb fairly well was Charles's realization of the importance of having a writer as great as Wilmot on your side.

"Elizabeth had her Shakespeare. You could be mine." This quote specifically makes it seem as if Charles wanted to be immortalized in lore (later, he even assigns Wilmot the task of composing a tribute to his reign) and to an extent he did, but it seems as if even more, he wanted Wilmot to use his stunning talent to ameliorate his 'public rating,' to use a more modern political term, and also improve the public perception of England's impoverished, filthy state. While it seems ridiculous on the surface to think that a nation's ruler would believe a writer could help him that much, we must believe that, as king, Charles was very well educated and could very easily have been moved to think a certain way by the great writers of the day that he had spent his life reading. Why couldn't he employ a writer or writers from within his grand domain to make his subjects feel the way he wanted them to? Why couldn't he find a writer of extraordinary talent and use him as a super-powered propaganda machine?

Well... he found the writer. But like a two-edged sword, Wilmot's genius came with a near perfect understanding of what his king intended to use him as and that understanding combined with his childish 'need' to speak his mind caused drama to say the least. Any child who has asked a parent why an unreasonable request must be completed only to be told: "You'll do it because I'm your Mom/Dad, and I said so" understands the level of frustration Wilmot had achieved. And as most of us smart, frustrated kids do, Wilmot found sometimes underhanded, sometimes passive aggressive, never blatant, but always effective ways to show his annoyance. Whether it was reading a sexually explicit poem about Charles' wife, or belittling his reign in front of the French ambassador with his play, Wilmot consistently found a way to embarrass the king and vent through the vulgar writing he enjoyed so greatly. He continually found ways to show King Charles that he was no tool and could not be controlled.

The irony is that in the end, when Wilmot does decide to use his powers in the English language to help Charles, the king assumes that he is merely fulfilling his civic duty as subject to lord and has finally succumbed to authority. When he voices this, Wilmot turns around, stares him down and (basically) makes the point with obvious disdain in his voice that Charles is an idiot. For the first time Charles doesn't seem put off by the insult though. He got what he wanted; his tool yielded a harvest. He's like a child who is being scolded for stealing candy but is too satisfied by the taste of the candy to care.

And then I had to re-evaluate who was the child in this relationship.