History of English Lit

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Restoration Age

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3. Restoration of Monarchy (1660)
■ The Puritan Interregnum ended and
monarchy was restored under Charles II,
the exiled son of Charles I
■ Accompanied by reopening of the theatres
that were closed during the Puritan rule
■ Church of England was restored as the
national church
■ Church and state were still deeply
intertwined
■ Two political factions, the Whigs (liberals)
and the Tories (conservatives) were formed

4. Charles II (r. 1660-1685)
■ During the Puritan Interregnum,
Prince Charles was in exile in France
and other parts of Europe
■ On 29 May 1660, the day he turned
30, Charles was restored to the
English throne
■ Handsome, popular, cynical,
unprincipled
■ For his luxuriant hedonistic life, he
came to called the “Merry Monarch”

5. Calamities after the Restoration
■ Wars with the Dutch
■ 1665-66 – Plague broke out again
■ 1666 Great Fire of London
■ Over 13,000 buildings
destroyed
■ Burnt for 5 days
■ However, only 6 people
known to have died

6. Charles and Religion
■ He favoured a policy of religious tolerance but
secretly favoured Catholicism, both of which the
Parliament could not accept
■ The Test Act of 1673 was passed
■ According to this, all civil and military
officers had to take communion with the
Anglican Church at least once a year
■ Meanwhile, in 1678, the “Popish Plot” of the
Catholics led by Titus Oates to assassinate
Charles II was revealed
■ Though the Popish Plot turned out to be
fictitious, it fanned an anti-Catholic hysteria
throughout England, leading to the Exclusion
Crisis

7. Exclusion Crisis
■ Charles II had no legitimate heirs, his wife Catherine
having had several miscarriages
■ The next in line to the throne was his Catholic brother
James
■ Two political factions emerged at this time, the Whigs
(liberals) who wanted to exclude James from inheritance,
and the Tories (conservatives) who supported James’s
accession
■ The Whig Party was founded by Anthony Ashley Cooper,
the 1st
Earl of Shaftesbury
■ He was one of the 12 members of the Parliament who
travelled to the Dutch Republic to invite Charles II to
return to England
■ The Whigs supported the accession of James Scott, Duke of
Monmouth, who was the eldest of Charles’s illegitimate
sons

8. The Exclusion Bill
■ In 1679, the Whigs, under the Earl of Shaftesbury and
the Duke of Buckingham, introduced the Exclusion Bill
in the House of Commons
■ The Bill sought to exclude Catholics from inheriting the
English throne
■ The King interfered, dissolved the Parliament, and
imprisoned Shaftesbury on the charge of high treason in
1681, in order to prevent the passing of the Exclusion
Bill
■ However, Shaftesbury was later released (and a medal
was cast in honour of his aquittal) and the Bill was
passed in the House of Commons
■ However, it was defeated in the House of Lords

9. Charles’s Last Days
■ Charles ruled without the Parliament
for the rest of his reign
■ In 1685, Charles died of a sudden
illness, which raised suspicions of
poisoning (later proved false)
■ On his deathbed, he converted to
Catholicism
■ He left numerous mistresses and
illegitimate children, but no legitimate
heirs

10. Literature and Culture in Charles’ Age
■ Charles II’s court championed the right of England’s
social elite to pursue pleasure and libertinism
■ Literature of 1660-1700 emphasizes “decorum,” or
critical principles based on what is elegant, fit, and right
■ Charles II authorized new companies of actors. Women
began to appear on stage in female roles.
■ Restoration prose style grew more like witty, urbane
conversation and less like the intricate, rhetorical style of
previous writers like John Milton and John Donne.
■ Restoration literature continued to appeal to heroic
ideals of love and honor, particularly on stage, in heroic
tragedy.
■ The other major dramatic genre was the Restoration
comedy of manners, which emphasizes sexual intrigue
and satirizes the elite's social behavior with witty
dialogue.

11. Science and Knowledge in Charles’Age
■ Charles patronized the arts and sciences, and supported the
Royal Society for the Improving of Natural Knowledge
(1662)
■ The Royal Society revolutionized scientific method by
studying natural history (the collection and description of
facts of nature), natural philosophy (study of the causes of
what happens in nature), and natural religion (study of nature
as a book written by God)
■ Dogmatism, or the blind acceptance of received religious
beliefs, was widely regarded as dangerous
■ The major idea of the period (founded on Francis Bacon) was
that of empiricism (which infers that experience including
experimentation is the reliable source of knowledge)
■ John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume all pursued
differing interpretations of empiricism, and the concept itself
had a profound impact on society and literature

12. James II (r. 1685-1688)
■ Came to power as James II of England (and Wales) and
Ireland and James VII of Scotland
■ These 3 kingdoms were united by the Act of Union
of 1707
■ He was the second son of Charles I, and ascended the
throne in 1685, after the death of Charles II
■ James was pro-French and pro-Catholic
■ In 1685, James Scott, Duke of Monmouth and Charles II’s
illegitimate son, attempted to overthrow James, which
came to be called the Monmouth Rebellion
■ James revoked the Test Act that favoured Anglican Church
■ Probably he had designs of becoming an absolute monarch
■ In 1688, a son (Catholic heir, who later came to be known
as “The Old Pretender”) was born to him, creating political
tension in England

13. Glorious Revolution (1688)
■ The Protestant nobles called on James’s Protestant
son-in-law and nephew, William III of Orange, and his wife
(James’s eldest daughter) Mary II to take the throne
■ William’s army landed from the Netherlands, and James
fled
■ This is the Bloodless Revolution or Glorious Revolution of
1688
■ For over 50 years, starting from 1689, James II and his
supporters attempted to recapture the throne in what came
to be called the Jacobite risings
■ The most notable of the Jacobite rebellions were in 1715
and 1745, by which time James was aided by his sons
(especially “The Old Pretender” whose son was called
“The Young Pretender”)

14. Glorious Revolution: Rationale and Results
■ John Locke provided the rationale for the Glorious
Revolution
■ Any single man must judge for himself whether
circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the
commands of the civil magistrate; we are all
qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate
the conduct of our rulers.
- John Locke, Second Treatise of Government,
1689
■ Prevented Catholicism from being re-established in
England
■ Imposed limitations on royal authority
■ Parliament gained more powers

15. The Joint Monarchy
■ William and Mary established a joint monarchy
■ In 1689, they passed the Bill of Rights which
made provisions
■ For freedom of speech in Parliament
■ For protecting the rights of the Protestants
■ Against the king dissolving the parliament at
will
■ For general elections to the Parliament
■ Mary II died and William III continued to rule till
1702’
■ Upon William’s death, Mary’s sister Anne came to
the throne

16. The French Connection
■ King Charles II and his companions had spent the period
of exile in France, and brought back admiration for
everything French
■ Hence the Restoration period came under the compelling
influence of French classicism in art, philosophy,
literature, theatre and social behaviour
■ Whereas the Italian influence had been dominant in
Elizabethan period
■ This was a period of classicism in France, characterized by
lucidity, vivacity, and by reason, the close attention given
to form – correctness, elegance and finish. It was
essentially a literature of polite society, in which intellect
was predominant and the critical faculty always in control

17. The Baroque
■ The baroque is a style in art, architecture, music and
literature primarily in the European continent, in which
the classical forms of the Renaissance are enhanced to
achieve elaborate, grandiose, energetic, and highly
dramatic effects
■ Captured the physical tensions of dynamic movement in
painting and sculpture
■ As opposed to the tranquility and mathematical
perspective of the Renaissance artists
■ The word derives from Portuguese word “barroco”
meaning “rough pearl”
■ The English Baroque is most associated with the
Restoration period (1660-1700), which also marked the
end of the Renaissance

18. Baroque Artists
■ Associated with the Baroque are
■ Richard Crashaw’s poetry
■ Milton’s Grand Style
■ Donne’s poetry
■ De Quincey’s descriptions of dreams
■ French Baroque (eg. Architecture of
Louis XIV’s Versailles)
■ The works of the Italian artist
Caravaggio
■ The art, architecture and sculpture of
Gian Lorenzo Bernini in Rome and
France
■ Also the art of Rubens, Rembrandt,
Vermeer

19. Restoration Poetry: The Poetry of Masculine Power
■ Influence of metaphysical and Cavalier verse
continued
■ Libertine verse (without moral restraints) became
prominent
■ Hedonistic account of the male conquest, often verging
on the pornographic as in Charles Sackville and
Charles Sedley
■ John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester’s poetry is a critique of
the libertine ideal
■ The rejection of the masculine libertine body in
Rochester’s poetry is commensurate with the female
libertinism of Aphra Behn’s verse which explored
power relations from a feminine perspective

20. Restoration Poetry: Epic and Satire
■ The epic was held as the highest genre
■ Milton’s successful epics: Paradise Lost, and Paradise
Regained
■ Cowley’s failed epics: Davideis and The Civil War
■ The Restoration satire
■ Marvell’s “The Last Instructions to a Painter”
(1667)
■ Satirizes Charles II and his administration
■ Samuel Butler’s mock-heroic satire Hudibras
(1661)
■ Satirizes the Puritans in support of the royal
court
■ Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, The Medal and
Mac Flecknoe

21. Restoration Prose
■ The age witnessed the birth of modern prose
■ Dryden
■ Critical prose
■ Romances by women
■ Margaret Cavendish
■ The Blazing World (1666)
● On the place of women in society; provides
a scientific interpretation of a feminized
nature
● Can be considered a reply to Bacon’s New
Atlantis
■ Aphra Behn
■ Oroonoko (1688)

22. Restoration Drama
■ Development of Restoration drama illustrated the rise and decline
of an artificial pseudo-courtly ideal in England
■ Did not represent any wide or deep current in English life
■ Two predominant genres
■ Heroic drama
■ Relied on spectacle and the hero’s emotional turmoil
as he struggles between duty to his country and
personal honour in order to attain his lady love, who
is usually a paragon of virtue
■ Comedy of Manners (Restoration Comedy)
■ Themes of cuckoldry and courtship continue from
“city comedy” of Jonson, Dekker, Middleton, etc
■ The “history play” disappeared along with the disappearance of
the “national consciousness” in drama

23. Restoration Theatre
■ The theatre and audience of the Restoration period were
very different from those of the Elizabethan era
■ Indoor theatres
■ Picture-frame stage
■ Actresses taking female parts
■ Moving scenery
■ Artificial lighting
■ Stage was dominated by spectacle
■ Audience was more restricted, geographically and
socially
■ Playhouse was regarded by respectable citizens of the
middle classes as a centre of vice and exhibitionism, and
they avoided it
■ Dramatists in turn ridiculed middle class virtues

24. Restoration Drama: Influences
■ Strongest influence on Restoration comedy was
Ben Jonson
■ Restoration writers dandified Jonson’s moral
comedies; refined and localized his wit
■ Jacobean writers like Beaumont and Fletcher
were still popular and influential
■ Influence of French writers like Corneille,
Moliere, Racine
■ Comedies of Moliere were translated and adapted
■ Restoration writers admired and imitated French
wit
■ Plays of the Spanish writer Calderon were popular

25. Samuel Butler (1612-1680)
■ Fame rests on the long burlesque poem Hudibras (3 parts,
1663, 1664 and 1678 respectively)
■ Charles II like it and granted him a pension
■ Butler became Secretary to the Duke of Buckingham;
accompanied him to France; and may have assisted him in
the composition of The Rehearsal
■ Other works
■ Numerous prose “characters”
■ Epigrammatic “thoughts”
■ Poems including “The Elephant in the Moon”, a
satire on Sir Paul Nealeof the Royal Society,
concerning a mouse who gets into a telescope

26. Samuel Butler (1612-1680)
■ Fame rests on the long burlesque poem Hudibras (3
parts, 1663, 1664 and 1678 respectively)
■ Charles II like it and granted him a pension
■ Butler became Secretary to the Duke of Buckingham;
accompanied him to France; and may have assisted him
in the composition of The Rehearsal
■ Other works
■ Numerous prose “characters”
■ Epigrammatic “thoughts”
■ Poems including “The Elephant in the Moon”, a
satire on Sir Paul Nealeof the Royal Society,
concerning a mouse who gets into a telescope

27. Hudibras (1663, 1664, 1678)
■ First great verse satire in English in octosyllabic couplets
■ Its distinctive style has given rise to the name
“Hudibrastics’
■ A biting satire on the Puritans and the tyranny of the
Commonwealth
■ Immensely popular in its time
■ The name “Hudibras” comes from The Faerie Queene
■ Sir Hudibras and his squire Ralpho broadly modelled on
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
■ The end of the poem describes the activities of the
Republicans just before the Restoration, and gives a study
of the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Achitophel in Dryden’s
Absalom and Achitophel

28. Sir William D’Avenant (1606-68)
■ Playwright, poet and theatre manager
■ One of the few personalities who were
active in English theatre before the Civil
War and after the Restoration
■ William Shakespeare is said to have been
his godfather, and even his biological
father
■ In 1638, named Poet Laureate after Ben
Jonson’s death the previous year
■ Royalist in the Civil War

29. Works by D’Avenant
■ Gondibert (1652)
■ Epic poem mainly written during his exile to Paris
■ Contains a Preface, which was published before the poem
itself, and an “answer” to it by Thomas Hobbes
■ The Siege of Rhodes (perf. 1656)
■ Opera first performed at Rutland House in 1656
■ Considered to be the first performance of an English
opera
■ Included England’s first known professional actress, Mrs
Coleman
■ Spectacular effects; bombastic speeches

30. Works by D’Avenant
■ Wrote, along with John Dryden, a
comic adaptation of The Tempest,
called The Tempest , or The
Enchanted Island
■ Added new characters
■ D’Avenant is satirized along with
Dryden in the play The Rehearsal,
written by George Villiers, the Duke
of Buckingham and others