# Help, I'm being attacked by English literature! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 24, 2006, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-im-being-attacked-by-english-literature/361938 "2006-06-24T01:12:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![blackhobyah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blackhobyah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blackhobyah)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2006, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-im-being-attacked-by-english-literature/361938/21 "2006-06-25T03:03:35Z")
[QUOTE=SpazCat] There’s one poem that I highly recommend just for the :eek: 😃 factor. It’s in the Elizabethan section, but I can’t remember the author. I do know he was a notorious rake and the poem is him lamenting that his raking days are over due to, oh shall we say a “social disease.” [/QUOTE] John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester. There’s a quite recent film with Johnny Depp as the infamous Earl. Does this edition contain “The Dream of the Rood”. It’s an extraordinary poem in Anglo-Saxon. And “The Wander” if it’s still in there. Other favourites of mine are Robert Henryson and John Skelton. Skelton’s “The Tunning of Eleanour Rumming” is a deliciously funny poem, a bloke’s disturbed and puzzled commentary on a girls night out. Anything you pick my John Donne will be worth reading. Robert Herrick is a lovely poet and has the advantage of not being at all long-winded. Andrew Marvell is a delight. John Milton just because. If you can catch the rhythm of his poetry he’ll have you, but it’s a different movement than you’ll likely be used to, but worth trying to get in time with him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-im-being-attacked-by-english-literature/361938.md?page=1)