The Tavern Scene from A Rake's Progress by William Hogarth.

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A rake, short for rakehell, is a historic term applied to a man who is habituated to immoral conduct, frequently a heartless womanizer. Often a rake was a prodigal who wasted his (usually inherited) fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the process. The rake was also frequently a man who seduced a young woman and impregnated her before leaving, often to her social or financial ruin.

The Restoration rake was a carefree, witty, sexually irresistible aristocrat whose heyday was during the English Restoration period (1660–1688), at the court of Charles II. They were typified by the "Merry gang" of courtiers, who included as prominent members the Earl of Rochester, George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Dorset, who combined riotous living with intellectual pursuits and patronage of the arts. At this time the rake featured as a stock character in Restoration comedy.^[1][2][3]

After the reign of Charles II, and especially after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the cultural perception of the rake took a dive into squalor. The rake became the butt of moralistic tales in which his typical fate was debtor's prison, venereal disease, or, in the case of William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress, insanity in Bedlam.^[4]

In history[link]

The defining period of the rake was at the court of Charles II in the late seventeenth century. Dubbed the "Merry Gang" by poet Andrew Marvell, their members included George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, Sir Charles Sedley, Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset, and the playwrights William Wycherley and George Etherege.^[5] Following the tone set by the monarch himself, these men distinguished themselves in drinking, womanising and witty conversation, with the Earl of Rochester outdoing all the rest. Many of them were inveterate gamblers, brawlers and duellists also. Lowlights of their careers include Sedley and the Earl of Dorset preaching naked to a crowd from an alehouse balcony in Covent Garden, as they simulated sex with each other, and Buckingham killing the Earl of Shrewsbury in a duel for the latter's wife.^[6]

A later group of aristocratic rakes were associated with the Hell Fire Club in the eighteenth century. These included Francis Dashwood and John Wilkes.^[7]

Other rakes include the reputed "Rape-Master General" of England, Colonel Charteris; Cagliostro, Lord Byron, John Mytton, Giacomo Casanova, Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun; the Marquis de Sade and Beauchamp Bagenal.

Categories of the rake in restoration comedy[link]

On the whole, rakes may be subdivided into the penitent and persistent ones, the first being reformed by the heroine, the latter pursuing their immoral conduct.^[8] Libertinistic attitudes, such as (sexual) licentiousness, alcoholism, scouring and gaming, can be discerned in characters belonging to the satiric norm as well as to the satiric scene. However, only the degree of wit brings the rakish gentleman, the Truewit, closer to the satiric norm, whereas Falsewits are always exploded in the satiric scene. The motivation of a rake to change his libertinistic ways is either hypocritical (Falsewits) or honest (Truewits). In other words, penitent rakes among the Falsewits only abandon their way of life for financial reasons, while penitent Truewits ever so often succumb to the charms of the witty heroine and, at least, go through the motions of vowing constancy.

Another typology distinguishes between the "polite rake" and the "debauch," using criteria of social class and style. In this case, the young, witty, and well-bred male character, who dominates the drawing rooms, is in sharp contrast to a contemptible debauch, who indulges in fornication, alcoholism, and hypocrisy.^[9]

Still other assessments of the libertine concentrate on the kind and intensity of libertinistic demeanour. Here, the rake falls into any one of three categories: extravagant libertine, vicious libertine, and philosophical libertine.

The extravagant rake is characterized by anti-normative conduct throughout, even though he finally settles down in matrimony. Between 1663 and 1668, examples are Wellbred in James Howard's The English Mounsieur (1663/64), Philidor in James Howard's All Mistaken (1665/1672), and Celadon in Dryden's Secret Love (1667). In the 1690s, Sir Hary Wildair in George Farquhar's The Constant Couple (1699) represents this kind of gentlemanly rake. The extravagant rake is as promiscuous and impulsive as he is wild and frivolous, and he finally finds his match in an equally extravagant and witty heroine.^[10] He is, above all, a self-aware character who "is what he wants to be," who delights in those qualities "with which he is endowed," and who provides "carnival release."^[11] Thus, the extravagant rake is a comic figure because his actions are exaggerated. But he is never a comic fool.

The vicious rake is invariably presented as a despicable, if wealthy person, who thrives on scheming and intrigue. He is frequently married and abuses his wife (examples are Pinchwife in The Country Wife or Sir John Brute in Vanbrugh's The Provok'd Wife).

Finally, the philosophical rake, the most attractive libertine figure, is characterized by self-control and refined behaviour as well as by a capacity for manipulating others. His pronounced libertinistic leanings are not supposed to contribute anything to the comic development of the plot. Rather, his libertinism is serious, thus reflecting the philosophical principles of the pleasure-seeking, cynical Court Wits. It is this kind of libertinism that has secured the notoriety of, say, William Wycherley's The Country Wife, George Etherege's The Man of Mode, and Sir Charles Sedley's Bellamira: or, The Mistress (see Bellamira (play)).^[12] Not only characters like Horner and Dorimant spring to mind but also Rodophil and Palamede in Dryden's Marriage-a-la-Mode, Longvil and Bruce in Shadwell's The Virtuoso and the eponymous heroine in Sedley's Bellamira.^[13] These plays are not representative of the average Restoration comedy, however. The reform of the ordinary rakish gentleman is the common pattern for the ending of the play. Similarly, extravagant rakes enter into marriage. However, as soon as the persistence of the rakes remains almost unquestioned, it is difficult to decide whether libertines, no matter of what "colour," play a major part in their authors’ satiric strategies. Although Etherege's Dorimant is "tamed" by Harriet, his conversion at the end is rather doubtful. Similarly, Wycherley's Horner is not punished satirically.

The libertinistic philosophy that the scintillating persistent rakes display seems to rebel against the narrow-mindedness and hypocrisy lurking behind the façade of Puritan honesty and bourgeois moral standards. It has been pointed out that the views of the philosophical libertine were strongly influenced by the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes.^[14] But then, Hobbes was not necessarily an unquestioned ideal among the court élite, and Hobbesian ideas certainly did not permeate many comedies. Dryden, for one, drew on Hobbesian ideas in his tragedies but these ideas are internalized by villains only.^[15]

In his pursuit of pleasure and sensual satisfaction, the philosophical libertine shows hedonistic, Epicurean, and anti-rationalist patterns of thought. In their ideal of life, the libertines of this order may almost be compared to the genius of a somewhat later time: like the genius, the libertinistic rake is anti-authoritarian, anti-normative, and anti-traditional.

It is, above all, the emotional distance from the objects of his desire as well as from the havoc he creates, which renders the persistent rake so frightening. Criticism of the libertine was heard not only in the 1670s when sex comedies were en vogue but also earlier, whenever the male partner of the gay couple was blamed for having indulged in immoral behaviour. One major counter-argument was the call for poetic justice. Thomas Shadwell and Dryden, for example, discussed the necessity of poetic justice in order to punish dissoluteness in their plays.^[16] To reintroduce moral standards, the rake, they demanded, had to be reformed towards the end of the play. If a persistent rake was allowed to propagate his philosophical libertinism, "poetische Ungerechtigkeit" ("poetic injustice") was likely to threaten the norm. Shadwell's Epsom-Wells may be regarded as a chief instigator of an excessive libertinism which is not questioned. The play, significantly, ends with a divorce rather than the standard device of a marriage.

However, the number of persistent rakes continued to grow, together with an upsurge in cuckolding action, and, between 1672 and 1687, not all persistent rakes are punished satirically.^[17] Only towards the end of the century did the increasing criticism of dramatic immorality and obscenity make the authors return to more traditional moral standards. In 1688, Shadwell’s Squire of Alsatia initiated the return to a Horatian prodesse in comedy, which had already been put forth in the Preface to The Humorist (1671): "My design was it, to reprehend some of the Vices and Follies of the Age, which I take to be the most proper, and most useful way of writing Comedy" (The Complete Works of Thomas Shadwell, ed. Montague Summers, Vol. I, p. 183).

As a consequence, future emphasis was no longer on libertinistic adventures but on the conversion and domestication of the dashing young men. D'Urfey's' Love for Money (1691) and Cibber's Love's Last Shift (1696) are moralizing plays and pave the way for the sentimental comedy of the early eighteenth century.

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• E. Beresford Chancellor (1925) The Lives of the Rakes (6 vols). Philip Allen.
• Fergus Linnane (2006) The Lives of the English Rakes. London, Portrait.
• D. Squibb (2011) The Art of Being a Rake in 21st Century Britain

v t e English Restoration Comedy Playwrights Aphra Behn Susanna Centlivre Colley Cibber William Congreve John Dryden George Etherege George Farquhar Edward Howard James Howard Robert Howard Thomas Otway Charles Sedley Thomas Shadwell Thomas Southerne Richard Steele John Vanbrugh George Villiers William Wycherley Notable Plays The Mulberry-Garden (1668) The Rehearsal (1671) Marriage à la mode (1672) The Country Wife (1675) The Plain-Dealer (1676) The Man of Mode (1676) The Rover (1677) Sodom (1684) Bellamira (1687) Love's Last Shift (1696) The Relapse (1696) The Way of the World (1700) The Recruiting Officer (1706) The Beaux' Stratagem (1707) A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1717) Characters Beau Fop Gay couple Spark Rake Related People Charles II Jeremy Collier Thomas Hobbes Marquis de Sade Molière James II Georg Monck John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester Related articles Bedlam Chocolate houses Comedy of manners Court Drury Lane Fleet Prison Hedonism The Libertine (1994) The Libertine (film) Libertinism Lincoln's Inn Fields Mode Restoration of Charles II Second Anglo-Dutch War Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage Wit

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Rake may refer to:

• Rake (tool), a horticultural implement, a long-handled tool with tines
• Rake or hay rake, a farm implement
• Rake, the caster angle of a bicycle or motorcycle
• Rake angle, a parameter in machining and cutting geometry
• Rake (cellular automaton), a cellular automaton pattern that moves while regularly emitting spaceships
• Rake (character), a man habituated to immoral conduct
• Rake (poker), the commission taken by a casino when hosting a poker game
• Rake (geology), the angle between a feature on a bedding plane and the strike line in geology
• Rake receiver, a radio receiver
• Rake (software), a variant of the make program coded in the Ruby programming language
• Rake (train), a physical railway train made up of coaches, or a coupled group of coaches
• Rake (theatre)
• Rake (TV series), an Australian television series
• The Rake, a short story about a cryptid named The Rake that mauls people in their sleep, popular amongst Creepypasta readers.

Place names[link]

• Rake, Iowa, a small town in the United States
• Rake, West Sussex, a village in England
• Rake, Slovenia, a settlement in the Kostel municipality in Slovenia

People[link]

• Rake Yohn, a member of the CKY and Jackass crews
• Rake (singer), a Japanese singer-songwriter
• The Rake of Rivera, a nickname for the Italian tycoon Gianni Agnelli

Other uses[link]

• A Rake's Progress, a series of illustrations by William Hogarth
• The Rake's Progress, an English opera by Igor Stravinsky, based on Hogarth's illustrations
• The Rake, a classical menswear magazine published out of Singapore
• Rake (band), a noise rock/avant-garde musical ensemble from Northern Virginia, USA
• Raking fire, fire along the axis of a ship in naval warfare
• The slope of the roof at the end of a gable
• A guitar-playing method involving muted notes
• Raking, a lock picking technique in which a lock pick is slid outwards from the back of a lock to push its pins up
• The artificial slope of a stage (theatre)

See also[link]

Sounding similar:

• Reiki, a complementary therapy

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Character(s) may refer to:

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• Character (arts), an agent in a work of art, including literature, drama, cinema, opera, etc.
• Character (film), a 1997 Dutch film, based on the novel by Dutch author Ferdinand Bordewijk
• Character (album), by Dark Tranquillity
• Character (role-playing games), a fictional person controlled by a participant
• Characters (Stevie Wonder album), 1987
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• Character Options, a toy company
• The Characters, a book by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus

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Richard Roxburgh
Richard Roxburgh, 2008
Born	(1962-01-23) 23 January 1962 (age 50) Albury, New South Wales, Australia
Years active	1987–present
Spouse	Silvia Colloca (2004–present)

Richard Roxburgh (born 23 January 1962)^[1] is an award-winning Australian actor, who has starred in many Australian films and television series, and has appeared in supporting roles in a number of Hollywood productions, usually as villains.

Early life[link]

Roxburgh was born in Albury, New South Wales to John (d. July 2011) and Mary Roxburgh; he is the youngest of six children. He studied economics at the Australian National University in Canberra,^[2] but decided to become an actor, and was admitted to the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) on his second audition attempt.

Acting career[link]

Roxburgh came to public attention for his acclaimed portrayal of corrupt New South Wales Police Force detective Roger Rogerson in the 1995 television mini-series Blue Murder, for which he won an AFI Award and Silver Logie for best actor in a television series.^{[citation needed]}

He appeared in several Australian film and stage productions through the 1990s, including a critically acclaimed turn as Hamlet in the 1994 Company B production at the Belvoir St Theatre. In December 2007, he played the lead character, Roland Henning, who suffered writer's block in Michael Gow's play, Toy Symphony, at the Belvoir Street Theatre Sydney, winning the 2008 Helpmann Award for best male actor in a play.

In 2000, Roxburgh appeared in the first of several international blockbuster films when he appeared as henchman Hugh Stamp in the John Woo-directed Mission: Impossible II, which was filmed in Sydney. Also filmed in Sydney was Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! (2001), in which Roxburgh played the Duke of Monroth.

Roxburgh appeared as three iconic characters over the next three years: he played Sherlock Holmes in 2002's The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty in 2003's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Count Dracula in 2004's Van Helsing. He is one of only two actors to have played all three of these characters, the other being Orson Welles, who played them in separate radio programs.

Roxburgh directed his first film, Romulus, My Father starring Eric Bana, released in 2007. This film won (and was nominated for several more) the AFI Award in December 2007. In 2008 and 2009, he played the lead role of Art Watkins in the ABC drama series East of Everything.^[3]

In July 2010, Roxburgh played former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke in a telemovie based on Hawke's life.^[3] Late in 2010, Roxburgh co-created and appeared in the lead role of the ABC1 television eight-episode drama series Rake. He stars in Matching Jack, which was released in August 2010, and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, released in September 2010.

Roxburgh played Vanya opposite Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and John Bell in Sydney Theatre Company's 2010 production of Anton Chekov's Uncle Vanya.^[4]

Personal life[link]

Roxburgh was in a relationship with fellow actor and NIDA graduate Miranda Otto, whom he met on the set of the film Doing Time for Patsy Cline in 1997. Their relationship ended in 2000.^[5]

During production of the film Van Helsing, Roxburgh met Italian actress Silvia Colloca, whom he married on 25 September 2004. They have two sons, Raphael Jack Domenico Roxburgh, who was born 10 February 2007, and Miro Gianni David Roxburgh, who was born 1 October 2010.^[6]

Filmography[link]

Awards[link]

Australian Film Institute

• 1997 – won: Doing Time for Patsy Cline
• 1999 – nominated: Passion
• 2001 – nominated: Moulin Rouge!
• 2006 – nominated: The Silence (TV)
• 2010 – won: Hawke (TV)

Film Crities Circle of Australia Awards

• 1998 – won: Doing Time for Patsy Cline

Logie Awards

• 1996 – won: Blue Murder (TV)
• 2007 – nominated: The Silence
• 2011 – nominated: Hawke (TV)
• 2011 – won: Rake (TV)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Richard Roxburgh at the Internet Movie Database
• Romulus My Father website
• Eyeforfilm.co.uk – Interview with Richard Roxburgh about Romulus, My Father