The Restoration Period

 

The Restoration Period

 

The Restoration of Charles 2 brought about a revolutionary change in life and literature. During this period gravity, spiritual zeal moral earnestness and decorum in all things, were thrown to winds. The natural instincts that were suppressed during the Puritan period came to violent excesses. The Restoration encouraged a levity that often became immoral and indecent. This tendency is prominent in the writing of the time, especially in the comedies. The king had a number of mistresses and numerous children. Corruption was rampant in all walks of life. The great Fire of 1665 and the Plague that followed were popularly regarded as suitable punishments for the sins of the Selfish king. While London was burning and the people were suffering the King and his nobles kept up their revels.

This era also witnessed the rise of two political parties - the Whigs and the Tories, which were to play a significant role in English politics. The Whigs sought to limit the royal power in the interests of the people and the Parliament. The Tories supported the “Divine Right” theory of the king, and strove to restrain the growing power of the people in the interest of the hereditary rulers. The rise of these political parties gave a fresh importance to men of literary ability, for both parties tried to enlist their support with bribes and pensions. Almost all the writers of this period had political affiliations.

James 2 ascended the throne in 1685. He soon revealed his Roman Catholic prejudices and tried to establish Catholicism in the country. He became unpopular within three years and the nation as a whole rose against him. The bloodless revolution of 1688 called the Protestant William and Mary of Orange to the throne. The country was once again restored to health and sanity. The religious passions diminished in intensity. The literature of the succeeding years tended to emphasize the political rather than the religious side of public affairs.

Literary Characteristics of the Age

In the literature of the Restoration, we note a sudden breaking away from old standards, just as society broke away from the restrains of Puritanism. Many of the literary men had been driven out of England with Charles. On their return they renounced old ideals and demanded that English poetry and drama should follow the style to which they had become accustomed in the gayety of Paris. The writers of the age developed two marked tendencies of their own, - the tendency to realism, and the tendency to that preciseness and elegance of expression which marks our literature for the next hundred years. The early Restoration writers sought to paint realistic pictures of a corrupt court and society. The second tendency of the age was toward directness and simplicity of expression and to this tendency, our literature is greatly indebted. Another thing about Restoration Literature is the adoption of the heroic couplet that is two iambic pentameter lines, which rime together as the most suitable form of poetry. Waller who began to use it in 1623 is generally regarded as the father of the heroic couplet.

Social and Literary Changes: The Restoration marks the real moment of birth of our modern English prose. It is by its organism-an organism opposed to length and involvement and enabling us to be clear plain and short - that English prose after the Restoration breaks with the style of the times preceding it, finds the true law of prose and becomes modern, becomes the style of our own day. From the historical point of view the establishment of modern English prose is the greatest single fact in the literary annals of the Age of Dryden.

The Growth of Science: The growing interest in rationalism and the advancement of science greatly aided the general movement towards precision and the lucidity of expression. The foundation of the Royal Society (1662), aimed at evolving clearness plainness conversational ease and directness of expression for their members as far as their writing is concerned.

Rise of Journalism: It was an age of unceasing political and religious excitement. Various groups and sects pioneered the development of that sort of literature, which we now class under the head of journalism.  Numerous pamphlets were written and many periodicals came into existence. For the first time the general reader and the ready writer appeared together, each reacting upon the other. This change of reading public means those things, which had formerly been treated in a dry and difficult way, had to be made simple and pleasant.

French Influence: In advance of all other European countries, France had already evolved a kind of prose which in its clearness, flexibility, plainness and good taste was admirably adapted for all the purposes of ordinary exposition, discussion and social intercourse. This prose provided just the model that the English prose writers needed for their guidance.

Prose Writers of Restoration Period

Dryden: -John Dryden was born in 1631, at Aldwincle, Northampton shire. He was the son of the Rev. Erasmus Dryden and Mary Pickering, both of whom belonged to old country families with strong Puritan tendencies. He has his early education at Westminster school where he made his first attempt at verse making in an elegy to the memory of a school fellow. In 1650 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge where he wrote some ordinary verse. Though of remarkable literary taste, he showed little evidence of literary ability up to the age of thirty. By his training and family connections, he was allied to the Puritan Party. The Preface to Fables is generally regarded as a splendid example of the new prose style developed by Dryden and his followers.

Samuel Butler (1612-1680): — Butler’s Hudibras, a pointed satire on Puritans, was published respectively in 1663, 1664 and 1668. It is a long savage attack on the Parliamentary party and pleased the fancy of the time. The name “Hudibras” comes from the Faerie Queens.”

Restoration Drama

The theatres which were closed in 1642 were opened during the Restoration. The theatre had degenerated completely in to a thing of the court. The plays written for the playhouse were distinctly calculated by the authors to appeal to a courtly audience. It is this that explains both the rise of the heroic tragedy and the development of the comedy of manners. Restoration affected the revival of Drama especially the comedy; in the sphere of Tragedy, heroic plays were produced.

The Restoration Tragedy or The Heroic Play

The heroic tragedy, often written in rhymed couplets and always dealing in a high rhetorical manner with the conflict between love and honor or love and duty, is a characteristic phenomenon of 1660s and 1670s. Both foreign and native influences contributed to the rise of the heroic tragedy.

The Foreign Influences: The plays of Corneille and Racine, the French dramatists, were translated into English and they exercised great influence on the dramatists of the Restoration England. The introduction of the new style by Roger Boyle, that is, the employment of rime in place of blank verse in these heroic plays was due to the influence of France.

The Native Influences: The influence of the Royal Court of Charles 2 was paramount on dramatists and actors alike. It reflects the changing mortal, spiritual and social conditions of the time.

Superb Characters: The stress on velour, beauty and love necessitated the introduction of the wonderfully brave hero and the virtuously fair heroine. Antony in Dryden’s All For Love is a typical hero of the Restoration Tragedy.

Treatment of Love: Love is the central factor in the Restoration Tragedy. It was not a normal kind of love. It was a legacy perhaps from the platonic love. It was considered superior to all virtues. Love is depicted as a perfect virtue.

The Classical Form: The classical form implied the style, which was employed by Ben Jonson and Racine. The three classical unities were observed. There was no intermixture of the comic and the tragic elements. The Restoration writers regarded plot as the “soul of the tragedy”. The object of the plot was to make the fable pleasing and to endow it with verisimilitude and decorum.

Heroic Couplet and the Blank Verse: Lee’s The Tragedy of Nero and Dryden’s Don Sebastian and Tyrannical Love, which are written in the heroic couplet, could not attain great dramatic height and excellence.

Sensationalism, Violence and Bloodshed: Sensation is an important feature of the heroic play. Themes are taken from the past, and the action is laid in some far-off place to provide the charm of novelty. Heroic tragedy, though free from the comedy, was equally artificial.

Dryden: -John Dryden was born in 1631, at Aldwincle, Northampton shire. He was the son of the Rev. Erasmus Dryden and Mary Pickering his wife, both of whom belonged to old country families with strong Puritan tendencies. Though of remarkable literary taste, he showed little evidence of literary ability up to the age of thirty. By his training and family connections, he was allied to the Puritan Party and his only well-known work of this period the Heroic Stanzas was written on the death of Cromwell.

From 1663-1681 Dryden devoted his energies to the field of drama because it was the most lucrative branch of the literary profession at that time. The Indian Emperor in 1667 established his reputation as a play Wright. Dryden was also a lyric poet of considerable merit. The Odes and lyrical poems of the last fifteen years (1685 to 1700) form a last outstanding group. The Song for Saint Cecilia’s Day (1687), is of remarkable musical beauty and sweetness.

Throughout the eighteenth century the Fables were apparently the most popular of Dryden’s poems. The Preface to Fables is generally regarded as a splendid example of the new prose style developed by Dryden and his followers. At the revolution of 1688, Dryden refused allegiance to William of Orange. He was deprived of all his offices and pensions and in his old age, he was thrown back on literature as his only means of livelihood. From the literary point of view the last troubled years were the best of Dryden’s life. He died in 1700 and was buried near Chaucer in Westminster Abbey.

Thomas Otway (1651-85): - Otway wrote Alcibiades (1675), Don Carlos (1676), The Orphan (1680 ) and Venice Preserv’d (1682). The first two plays are written in rhymed couplets. His reputations rest, however, on two plays -The Orphan and the Venice Preserv’d.

Nathaniel Lee (1653-92): He wrote many tragedies, of which the prominent ones are Nero (1676), The Rival Queens (1677 ) and Mithridates (1678 ). In Lee’s plays the construction is weak, and the style is full of bombast and conceit.

Restoration Comedy

Restoration comedy is a genuine reflection of the temper, if not actual life, of the upper classes of the nation, and as such it has a sociological as well as literary interest. Unlike the Shakespearean comedy, which is romantic in spirit, it is devoted specially to picturing the external details of life, the fashions of the time, its manners, its speech, and its interests. The dramatists confine their scenes to the familiar places, and not to remote and far -off places. They confine themselves to the drawing rooms, the coffee houses, the streets, and gardens of London. The characters, which are mainly types, represent chiefly people of fashion. The plots of restoration comedies are mainly love intrigues. They are remarkable for a neat, precise, witty, balanced and lucid prose style.

William Congreve (1670-1729): Congreve is the best and finest writer of the comedy of manners. He wrote all his comedies before he was thirty His first play was The Old Bachelor. His next play was The Double Dealer (1693). His next play, Love For Love (1695) is wholly comic from start to finish. It was much more successful when it was staged in 1695. His next play The Mourning Bride was tragedy which proved popular when it was staged in 1697. The Way of the World (1700) is considered by common consent as a work of art and as a pure comedy of manners.

George Etherege (1635? -91): His three plays are The Comic Revenge or Love in A Tub (1664), She Wou’d if She Cou’d (1668), and The Man of the Mode or Sir Fopling Flutter (1676). His plays established the comedy of manners, and paved the way for Congreve.

Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726): His best three comedies are The Relapse (1696), The Provok’d Wife (1697) and Confederacy (1705).

George Farquhar (1678-1707): A man of versatile genius, George Farquhar was in turn a clergyman, an actor, and soldier, and died when he was twenty-nine years old. His plays are Love and a Bottle, The Constant Couple, Sir Harry Wildair, The Inconstant (1703), The Way to Win Him, The Recruiting Officer (1706) and The Beaux’ Stratagem (1707).