CHAPTER 8

Historical Context: The Restoration

Charles II (1660-1685) was restored to the throne of England. With the return of the
monarchy the Crown and the Church regained the lands confiscated during the
Commonwealth.
The first evident effect of the king’s return was the decline of the Puritan regime. Deeply
interested in arts and literature Charles transformed his court into a centre of culture but
soon his frivolous and licentious conduct disappointed the majority of his subjects.
Moreover the Charles's intention to be tolerant in religious questions was opposed by
Parliament. For this reason a series of restrictive measures known as The Code of Clarendon
were passed in 1661 which re-established the privileges of the Church of England excluding
the Puritan faith.
Between 1665 and 1666 two disasters took place in England: the Plague and the Great Fire
which destroyed a large part of London. (St. Paul’s Cathedral was reconstructed by Sir
Christopher Wren).
England made a Triple Alliance with Holland and Sweden against France but Charles,
educated in France and Catholic at heart, made a secret agreement with the French King
Louis XIV. He decided to help France against Poland in return of a sum of money. To avoid
the return of a Catholic king on the throne of England, Parliament voted the Exclusion Bill to
exclude the Catholic James, the king’s brother and heir, from the throne and gave it to
Mary, James’ s daughter and to her husband the Dutch William of Orange.
The controversy which followed created two political parties: the Whigs, the party who
wanted to exclude James from the throne (the old Puritans, the bourgeoisie) and the Tories,
the party that supported James (the Cavaliers, the aristocracy).

James II (1685-1688) was a Catholic and he tried to reintroduce Catholicism into England
and Scotland. For this reason rebellions broke out both in Scotland and in England but the
English hoped that better times would come since James has two daughters who were both
Protestants. His heir was Mary, the wife of William of Orange the champion of the
Protestant cause in Europe, but when a male heir was born, William of Orange landed in
England to help English people and James II ran away to France with his family.

William III (1689-1702) and Mary II (1689-1694) became king and queen in 1689. Their
reign was called the Glorious Revolution because it was bloodless and peaceful.
They were obliged to sign the Bill of Rights (1689) which further limited the power of the
king in favour of Parliament. Two more acts were also passed: the Toleration Act (1689),
which gave freedom to all dissenters with the exception of Catholics, and the Act of
Settlement (1701), which stated that Catholic monarchs were excluded from the throne. It
also stated that, on the death of William III, the throne would pass to Mary’s sister, Anne,
and in case Anne should die without heirs, to the descendants of Sophia of Hanover.

Literary Context: The Age of Dryden

Restoration brought several changes in tastes and ways of thinking, which also marked
literature. Charles II, coming back from his French exile, imported new fashions and a new
way of living which was different from the previous Puritan one. The simple and sober way
of living of the Puritans was replaced by licentiousness and immorality even corruption.
Cynicism and libertinism spread together with a certain taste for elegance and affection
which the king had brought from France.
France was living a splendid period and French models deeply influenced English literature.
During the restoration theatres reopened and the new dramas were written in imitation of
the French models: Corneille, Racine, Molière.
The imitation of French models also originated a new style because the elaborated
Elizabethan language was no longer suitable (adatto) for that time. Moreover, the political
and economic changes together with the increasing rise of the middle-class made it more
interested in reading. For this reason people required a clear and concise language.
Another relevant feature of the time was a new logical and rational theory which invested
the philosophical scientific and literary fields. Imagination was slowly replaced by reason
while passion with self-control and balance.
During this period the Royal Society of London was founded.

POETRY
Poetry suffered a decline in the Restoration period. The genre which prevailed was satire,
whose purpose was, in general, to attack something or somebody, either to teach or to
ridicule or to revenge oneself, to denounce, to moralise, etc. The techniques used were
different: humour, sarcasm, wit, irony or burlesque.
(Dryden used satire to revenge himself and to denounce. The technique used was inflection
and deflection.) Its targets could be single individuals, usually politicians or fellow writers, or
wider topics such as religious or political or literary controversies.
One of the greatest satirical poets of the Restoration was Samuel Butler (1619-1680) whose
main work, modelled on Cervantes’s masterpiece, Don Quixote, attacked the Puritans for
their religious fanaticism and hypocrisy.

PROSE
The foundation of the Royal Society in 1662 greatly contributed to the improvement of
English prose. The new studies in science needed a clear and concise language so English
prose became simpler and more accurate. Apart from Bunyan, who, like Milton spiritually
belonged to the Puritan Age, Restoration prose writers can be divided into two main groups:
the Philosophers (Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) wrote The Leviathan and John Locke (1632-
1704) wrote the Essay concerning human understanding) and the diarists.
The restoration also saw the flourishing of a new literary genre: the diary. A diary is usually a
book that records someone’s private thoughts in a simple and often telegraphic style. The
two most famous English diarists were John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys who lived at the
same time, were friends and both wrote about some of the most important events of the
time.

DRAMA
Drama was probably the genre which best mirrored Restoration.
In 1660 theatres reopened but they were different from the Elizabethan and the Jacobean
ones.
Sir Christopher Wren was asked to design two new theatres for the only two patented
companies of the time the Duke’s company and the King's company.
For the first time women acted together with men, this fact made the performance more
realistic. The audience, who now was sitting separate from the stage, was made up of
courtiers, aristocrats and upper-middle-class, who went to the theatre not only to enjoy a
play but also to meet friends, so the popular character of the Elizabeth theatre disappeared
forever.
In Shakespeare’s time the sources of inspiration were the Italian authors while during the
Restoration playwrights took inspiration from France and Spain.
People went to the theatre mainly to be amused and not to think: they wanted more sex,
wit and elegance, they wanted to see on the stage characters like themselves.
Also the language and the style were affected by changes, in fact blank verse was replaced
by couplets in heroic plays and by prose in comedies.
Restoration drama included three main genres: heroic play, tragedy and comedy.

Heroic plays
It was a very elaborate and elegant type of play written in imitation of epic and heroic
poems. The main themes were honour, patriotism and love.
It was influenced by the French Racine and Corneille and by the Spanish theatre.
It was a verse play written in heroic couplets, that developed in England from 1664 and
1674. Started by Sir William Davenant and its main representative was John Dryden.

Tragedies
After 1674 heroic plays were replaced by tragedies, which marked the return to the
Elizabethan theatre. The heroic couplet was replaced by blank verse. The most important
tragedy of the Restoration was written by Thomas Otway (1652-1685), “Venice preserved”.

Comedy of Manners
They reflected above all the dissolute life of the Court, and of the aristocracy and its main
targets were the middle-class virtues and ideals. They were marked by a certain degree of
licentiousness, sex, sensuality and cynicism.
Restoration comedy was strongly influenced by Molière, who showed dramatists how to
develop characters, and by the Italian Commedia dell’Arte.
The plots were intricate by the presence of numerous subplots which involved a great
number of characters.
The characters were quite different from those in the Elizabethan comedies. Restoration
plays focused their attention not so much on the social origin of their characters or on their
moral deficiencies but on the way they behaved.
Low characters where people who tried to imitate aristocratic manners. A new type of male
character was created: he was usually the hero of the play, elegant witty but cynical, while
the heroine endowed with wit and fascinated more by fashion and dresses than by morals.
Restoration comedies were written in prose.
William Congreve (1670-1729) was the best playwright of the restoration. “The way of the
world” his masterpiece.

JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700)

John Dryden was a dramatist, a critic and a poet at the same time. He was the greatest
writer of the Restoration period.
He was educated at Cambridge where he received a classical education. He adapted himself
to the changing events of the times: a Republican during the Commonwealth, a Royalist
under Charles II, who made him a poet laureate. He was originally a Puritan, then he
became Anglican during the restoration and he converted to Catholicism under James II.

His works can be divided into four groups:

Poetry
 Absalom and Achitophel (1681 1680)
 A song for St. Cecilia’s Day (1687) an ode celebrating the patroness of music. It was
accompanied by music.
Drama
 All for love (1677) a blank verse tragedy based on Shakespeare’s Anthony and
Cleopatra
Prose
 Essay of Dramatic Poesie (1668)
Translations from Latin poets.

Features
- Much of Dryden’s best poetry is political. The publication of political pamphlets
became an important way of influencing public opinion. Dryden was a professional
poet in the sense that he made a living by writing works.
 - Dryden is often called the father of criticism in English because he wrote a number of
critical essays.
- he developed the heroic couplet and invented the “Pindaric Ode”.
The heroic couplet required great skill and ability, he used alternatively “close” and
“open” couplets to avoid monotony, especially in his satirical poems.
- Dryden‘s use of the heroic couplet is declamatory. He charges it with great energy
and force, he wrote long sentences, long periods with complex constructions.
- Dryden considered epic poetry the highest epic genre, though he made only
beautiful translations from some epic poets. He devoted himself to satire and
occasionally poetry, composing poems to celebrate great public occasions such as his
great odes.

Absalom and Achitophel (1681-1682)

The poem, written in two parts and in two different years, was inspired by a plot organised
by the Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles II and one of his many mistresses.
When people thought that Charles II could have been succeeded by his Catholic brother
James, the Protest Monmouth, advised by the Earl of Shaftesbury, organised a conspiracy to
exclude James from the throne, but he was captured and put to death.
Dryden shifts the story back to the time of King David in the Old Testament. King David is
Charles II while his son Monmouth is Absalom and Shaftesbury is Achitophel.
The poem is a powerful political satire in which Dryden attacks Monmouth and Shaftesbury
and he ridicules the Whig Party. Humour, irony, wit and cruel satire combine.

Essay of Dramatic Poesie (1668)

Written in the dialogue form, he expressed his literary criticism about the comparison
between ancient and modern playwrights, the respect of the classical unities, the superiority
of English to French drama.
Dryden’s prose is direct and concise, made up of short sentences, as he wanted to be
understood by everyone.