John Wilmot, Against a Leviathan Figure

As Iain alluded to in his earlier post, as a group we did not reach a general consensus as to one predominant reading of John Wilmot's poem Upon Nothing. Personally, I found myself focussing on the religious aspect of the poem. The narrator begins by discussing the formation of the world from a "Primitive Nothing", from which "something strait begot" (5). He then refers to the creation of "Men, Beasts, Birds, Fire, Water, Air and Land" (12), while even more briefly mentioning man’s “undistinguish’d fall” (9). So far this is fairly typical Christian creation-story stuff—creation, man’s fall from paradise, etc. There is also reference to a “Rebel Light” (15), which I took to be Lucifer (the name literally means “Bright One”), and how him and his “Leagues combine, / To spoil thy [presumably God’s] peaceful Realm, and ruine all thy Line” (18). It is almost as though the speaker here is summarizing very briefly the biblical story of creation and Satan and his followers' expulsion from Heaven. As I recall, most of our group agreed upon this as an acceptable reading of the first half of this poem; it was during the latter half that we diverged.
I especially took notice to the eighth stanza:

Tho’ Mysteries are barr’d from Laick Eyes,
And the Divine alone, with
Warrant, pryes
Into thy Bosom where the truth in private lies;
(22-24)

I hate paraphrasing, but I missed this the first couple of times that I read the poem. The speaker here could be saying that only the “Divine”, God, possesses a warrant, or authorization, to see the secrets and private truths of mankind. More importantly, “Laick Eyes” are not permitted (I had to look up “Laick= Of or pertaining to a layman or the laity; non-clerical, secular, temporal”-OED). So the leader of state, or Leviathan figure, has no right or permission to pry into any person’s private life; God alone reserves that right. Further on, the speaker debases “Sacred Monarchs” (38), saying that they sit at council “With Persons highly thought at best for nothing fit” (39). Again, this implies that mankind should not be ruled by monarchical figures, as they are simply not fit for it. The following stanza calls them nothing more than “Fools in grave disguise” (43), with furs and gowns to make themselves look wiser. Moreover, the final stanza of the poem compares “Kings Promises” with “Whores Vows” (50). This debases Kings’ authority to the level of a common prostitute of the time, whose word is utterly meaningless.

One could easily write an entire essay analyzing each and every line of this poem, for there are so many subtle connotations behind Wilmot’s carefully chosen words. I have but glazed the surface with my own personal reading, in which I hope to have shown Wilmot’s alignment with the metaphysical poets, and his strong opposition to Hobbes’ notion of a Leviathan figure.

- Sean