The Restoration Period

The  Restoration  and  the  Eighteenth  Century The  period  from  1660—when  the  English  crown  was  restored  as  Charles  II  became  king —to  1800  saw  the  vast  transformation  of  English  society  and  English  politics  as  well  as significant  developments  within  English  literature.    Politically,  the  era  followed  nearly  two decades  of  civil  unrest  and  war.    The  return  of  the  monarchy  left  many  questions unanswered  in  terms  of  the  king’s  power  versus  that  of  Parliament.    While  Charles  II largely  avoided  the  conflicts  that  might  have  brought  the  issue  to  a  head,  his  successor, his  brother  James  II,  soon  fell  into  trouble  with  Parliament  in  his  attempt  to  strengthen the  power  of  the  Catholic  church.    In  1688,  Parliament  deposed  James,  replacing  him with  his  Protestant  daughter  Mary  and  her  husband,  the  Dutch  William.    In  the  process, through  what  has  been  called  the  Glorious  Revolution,  Parliament  secured  its  authority.   While  James’s  son  and  grandson  would  threaten  this  settlement  in  the  18th  century,  the Glorious  Revolution  helped  to  initiate  the  modern  system  of  limited  monarchical  power and  led  to  the  passage  of  England’s  Bill  of  Rights. In  1707,  the  Act  of  Union  joined  Scotland  and  England  into  one  nation  (Great  Britain), and  in  the  century  that  followed,  through  economic  and  military  advances,  the  British would  establish  the  most  powerful  and  far-reaching  empire  in  the  world,  securing  their dominance  in  India,  their  continued  strength  in  North  America,  even  after  the  American Revolution,  and  their  presence  in  Africa,  South  America,  and  the  Pacific  Islands.   Parliament’s  power  increased  during  this  era,  in  part  due  to  the  line  of  monarchical succession  passing  to  the  house  of  Hanover  in  1714.    George  I  and  George  II,  who ruled  from  1714-1760,  identified  more  with  their  homes  in  Hanover  in  Germany  than with  the  nation  they  ruled,  allowing  Parliament  to  more  firmly  establish  its  supremacy.   During  this  time,  the  Whigs—the  political  party  that  identified  with  the  rising  middle classes  and  with  commerce  and  that  drew  considerable  support  from  those  who opposed  the  Anglican  church—were  most  often  in  power,  while  the  Tories—the  party that  more  closely  identified  itself  with  aristocracy,  landed  wealth,  and  traditional  English society,  including  the  Anglican  church,  most  often  found  themselves  criticizing  the changes  the  Whigs  were  able  to  foster.   Culturally,  the  Restoration  is  best  known  as  a  backlash  against  the  Puritan  rule  it followed.    Specifically,  society  and  culture  around  the  king  was  characterized  by loosened  morals,  more  opulent  displays  of  wealth  and  learning,  and  the  celebration  of the  bawdy  and  the  bodily.    While  much  of  that  was  limited  to  the  court  culture  around London,  Charles’s  court  became  the  center  of  English  culture,  as  he  and  his  followers became  the  most  important  patrons  of  the  arts.    Charles  chartered  two  theatre companies  in  1660,  reopening  the  English  stage  to  dramatic  productions,  and  the  Royal Society,  the  most  important  scientific  body  of  the  era.   In  the  field  of  literature,  the  Restoration  and  the  eighteenth  century  are  often characterized  in  terms  of  neoclassicism.    While  this  course  will  explore  neoclassicism  in more  depth  later  in  this  unit,  we  can  outline  some  of  the  chief  features  of  neoclassicism here.    The  classicism  in  neoclassicism  derived  from  many  thinkers’  and  authors’  sense that  the  best  models  for  literature  came  from  the  classical  era,  specifically  from  the Roman Augustan  writers  Horace,  Virgil,  and  Ovid.    Thus,  while  most  writers  of  this  era strove  to  make  their  works  conform  with  nature,  as  did  the  preceding  writers  of  the Renaissance  and  the  romantics  who  followed,  they  thought  that  the  rules  and  methods discovered  by  prior  great  artists  provided  the  best  route  for  doing  so.    Underlying  that idea  was  a  sense  that  human  nature—and  the  art  that  attempted  to  capture  it—was  the same  across  time  and  space.    The  rules  of  art  for  one  era,  then,  should  be  the  same  for any  era.    In  keeping  with  this  more  conservative  orientation  towards  literary  innovation, English  neoclassicism  tended  to  stress  balance  and  restraint  and  the  correct  and  limited use  of  figurative  language  in  terms  of  technique,  and  the  depiction  of  general  cases over  the  idiosyncratic  or  unusual  in  terms  of  theme  and  content.    These  ideals  reiterated a  broader  philosophical  emphasis  on  the  limits  of  human  knowledge  and  a  certain skepticism  about  metaphysical  questions.    This  literature  tended  to  be  very  social  in focus,  attending  to  human  flaws  and  attempting  to  correct  them  through  satire,  rather than  celebrating  or  revealing  a  striving  to  exceed  previous  standards  or  ideals.    This attitude  can  be  summed  up  in  the  idea  of  decorum,  of  language  and  character  keeping to  within  long-held  standards. Literary  historians  sometimes  break  up  this  era  into  three  periods,  the  Age  of  Dryden, from  1660  to  John  Dryden’s  death  in  1700,  when  English  neoclassicism  was  being established;  the  Age  of  Pope  and  Swift,  from  1700  to  their  deaths  in  1744-45,  when neoclassicism  fully  flowered;  and  the  Age  of  Johnson,  from  1744-45  until  his  death  in 1784,  when  neoclassicism  began  to  be  more  fully  challenged  by  a  variety  of  ideas  and attitudes,  including  the  rise  of  the  novel  as  a  popular  form,  the  development  of sentimentalism  as  a  literary  and  philosophical  movement,  and  the  increasing  optimism of  Enlightenment  thought.    This  unit  (and  the  unit  on  the  novel  which  follows)  will complicate  this  outline  of  the  era,  but  we  can  use  it  as  basic  guide  for  delineating  some broad  trends.    During  the  Age  of  Dryden,  the  Restoration  and  the  years  immediately following  the  Glorious  Revolution,  literary  culture  was  largely  centered  on  the  court.   Patronage  from  aristocratic  families  remained  the  primary  source  of  income  for  writers, and  their  subjects  and  attitudes  reflected  their  attachment  to  the  court.    This  age  is particularly  known  for  its  witty  and  ribald  drama,  plays  that  displayed  and  sometimes satirized  the  debauched  behavior  of  the  upper  classes.    Reaction  against  Restoration excess  set  in  in  the  1690s,  and  the  cynical  comedy  of  manners  began  to  fade.    With  the turn  of  the  century,  Enlightenment  thought  began  to  take  more  prominence  and  with  it came  an  increasing  optimism  about  human  nature  and  the  potential  to  reform  human shortcomings.    The  Age  of  Pope  and  Swift  that  followed  can  be  seen  as  marking  a  shift in  the  literary  culture  from  the  court  to  the  coffee  house,  as  these  important  social centers  began  to  become  central  meeting  places  for  politicians  and  writers.    Many  of  the great  writers  of  this  era  were  directly  engaged  with  politics,  and  satire  became  one  of the  central  features  of  the  age.    It  was  also  the  age  that  gave  rise  to  some  of  the  most important  journalistic  literature  in  English  history,  most  notably  Addison  and  Steele’s Spectator,  which  helped  to  establish  a  certain  moral  pose  as  well  as  restrained  style  as the  model  for  the  century  that  would  follow.    These  authors  were  now  writing  for  a broader  audience,  in  part  because  patronage  from  the  court  and  the  aristocracy  began to  disappear  and  writers  increasingly  depended  on  publishers  and  the  marketplace  for their  livelihood.    With  the  middle  of  the  century,  many  of  these  changes  led  to  new  and varied  literary  forms,  in  particular  forms  such  as  the  novel  that  focused  more  squarely  on  the  individual  and  his  or  her  feelings  and  experience.  At  the  same  time,  thought, neoclassical  ideals,  as  espoused  most  fully  by  Samuel  Johnson,  continued  to  reign.