History Of English LiteratureCOMSATS Virtual Islamabad

18th Century LiteratureAge of Dryden/The Restoration

Period

After the Restoration in 1660, when Charles II came to the throne, there was a complete repudiation of the Puritan ideals and way of living.

In English literature the period from 1660 to 1700 is called the period of Restoration, because monarchy was restored in England, and Charles II, the son of Charles I who had been defeated and beheaded, came back to England from his exile in France and became the King.

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Works are often political in nature or occasional pieces (written for a specific occasion).

Also wrote for money poetry and plays had to meet the taste of

the day. Writing is very eloquent and intellectual

qualities not always appreciated today

Son of a moderate Puritan country gentleman of moderate means

First attended Westminster School Trinity College, Cambridge. Stayed on at Trinity for three years

after graduation, but did not earn a higher degree.

His first important poem was Heroic Stanzas (1659) to commemorate Cromwell.

Astraea Redux (1660) in honor of the Restoration

For the rest of his life he was loyal to Charles and James.

He was very much aware of the religious, political, philosophical and artistic trends that were swirling about him, and he wrote about them.

His occasional poems and Astraea Redux and Annus Miribilis (1667) are his greatest examples of this.

In 1662, he was elected to the Royal Society, England’s national academy of science founded by King Charles II in 1660.

Married Lady Elizabeth Howard, 1663 the sister of his patron, the poet and courtier, Sir

Robert Howard He and Sir Robert wrote the play The Indian Queen

together, 1664. By marrying a “lady” he married “above his station”. His election to the Royal Society helped make the

marriage possible.

Between 1664-81 mainly a playwright. Openly wrote to please people and make

money In this respect he was very much like a

screenplay writer today.

Usually wrote rhymed heroic plays the taste in the early part of the Restoration.

Feature incredibly noble heroes and heroines who face impossible choices between love and honor or duty.

All for Love (1667) reworking of Shakespeare’s Antony and

Cleopatra in blank verse and adapted to the Unities of time, place and action

Studied the great playwright Greece Rome Renaissance French contemporaries.

Sought sound theatrical principles on which to construct new drama.

Between 1678-81 at his height. Mock-epic satire MacFlecknoe (1678)

satirizing the playwright Thomas Shadwell

Absalom and Achitophel (1681) The Medal in 1682, a poem written in

response to Shaftesbury getting off on charges of treason.

Published 1682 Title means “A Layman’s Religion” Examines the grounds of his religious

faith Defended the middle way of the

Anglican Church against Deism and Catholicism.

A philosophy, not really a religion Often is called “a natural religion” Sought to find a standard and a guide in

all the conflicting creeds and doctrines of the 17th century

“One who believes in the existence of a God or supreme being but denies revealed religion, basing his belief on the light of nature and reason." (Webster)

First “name” of English Deism1583-1648Codified the philosophy of Deism

a belief in the existence of the Deity, the obligation to reverence such a power, the identification of worship with practical

morality, the obligation to repent of sin and to abandon it,

and, divine recompense in this world and the next.

"Five Articles" constitute the nucleus of all religions and of Christianity in its primitive, uncorrupted form.

The variations between positive religions are explained as due partly to the allegorization of nature partly to self-deception, the workings of imagination, priestly guile.

Particularly evident in the writings of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes.

Interest in science and maths during this part of the century, and the reaction against the harsh religious wars of the earlier part of the century made Deism appealing to “Men of Reason” as they thought of themselves.

Anglican during most of his adult life In 1686 Dryden and his two sons

converted to Roman Catholicism. Political enemies and literary rivals said he

was being an opportunist and converting to the religion of the king,

Remained a Roman Catholic after James was overthrown.

Lost his official positions under William and Mary in 1688 as well as all of his stipends.

The Hind and the Panther (1687) debate between the pure white hind, (Roman

Catholic faith) and the spotted panther (Anglican Church)

After the 1688 revolution, Dryden had to work hard for money until the end of his life, as was the situation for many writers.

To earn his keep, he resumed writing plays and started doing translations of literature.

In 1693 he did translations of Juvenal and Persius

In 1697 he published a fine translation of Virgil.

In 1700, two months before his death, he published Fables Ancient and Modern.

Dryden had an incredible influence on English literature, especially through his criticism.

He set the taste and standards in literature for a century

Standards were overthrown by the Romantics, who still hold critical sway today.

Neo-classical, when used in a specific literary sense, refers to the theories and practices of most writers from the latter part of the 17th century through the 18th century.

It’s a very broad description Includes

Dryden Swift Pope Addison Johnson.

Admired restraint, clarity, order, balance and proportion.

Applied the principle of decorum the idea of a rich and elevated language is the

appropriate one for writing tragedy, but that a simpler language was used for comedy and other genres that deal with ordinary life.

Dryden as well as Swift and Pope would invert this formula, often using rich elevated language when writing satire.

Examples of this are MacFlecknoe, The Lady’s Dressing Room, and The Rape of the Lock

From The Poetics Later codified by French and Italian

writers during the Renaissance. Dryden argues that the Unities are

important, but good drama is more important, so if one has to bend the rules, it’s permissible.

“Neoclassicists generally regarded man as a limited creature whose understanding was not adequate to an exploration of the infinite. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), John Locke expressed the hope that his ‘inquiry into the nature of understanding’ would lead ‘the busy mind of man to be more cautious in meddling with things exceeding its comprehension… . Our business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.’

This acceptance of human limitations and this emphasis on ‘conduct’, on the behaviour proper to men in society, was congenial to an age in which many of the greatest literary productions were satires of human pretensions. Commonly, the enlightened minds of the age believed that the orderly laws of the physical universe (as Newton and others were revealing them) demonstrated that a beneficent creator existed and that human affairs were to be directed toward understanding man’s position in the physical universe and in the social world. As Pope wrote, ‘The proper study of mankind is man.’

“For the writer, the proper goal, as the Roman poet Horace had said, to instruct and to delight. Through embellishments of language, the poet was to please his reader and thus lead him to see his characters as individuals who were yet general representations of humankind. Recognizing in the actions of these characters what was virtuous as well as what was foolish, the reader learned, presumably, to admire the former and avoid the latter.

To achieve his goal, the poet had to do more than just trust his inspiration: he had to study his craft, particularly as it had been practised by the great writers of the Classical ages of Greece and Rome. For in their works and in the ‘rules’ that the best critics of the past had devised, he would find reflected those general laws governing man an the world that are the true source of knowledge -- in short, ‘Nature’.” (Beckson and Ganz’s Literary Terms: A dictionary)

Socratic dialogue We only read a small segment Speakers based on real people.

Sir Robert Howard, Dryden’s brother-in-law and fellow playwright

They argued about the use of blank verse in drama.

Sir Charles Sedley, another poet/playwright associated with Court circles

Dryden himself

Dryden, c 1698

“Be it spoken to the honour of the English, our nation can never want in any age such who are able to dispute the empire of wit with any people in the universe. And though the fury of a civil war, and power for twenty years together of a barbarous race of men, enemies of all good learning, had buried the muses under the ruins of monarchy; yet, with the restoration of our happiness, we see revived poesy lifting up its head, and already shaking off the rubbish which lay so heavy on it.”

Occasional poem linked to the trial of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury

First been a soldier for Charles I Became a Parliamentarian under Cromwell. On the Restoration he was pardoned by

Charles II Became an influential politician

member of Charles’s infamous “Cabal” ministry

Appointed Lord Chancellor in 1672 Did not support James to become king after

his brother because of his Catholicism. Supported Charles’s illegitimate son, James,

Duke of Monmouth’s claim to the throne He was brought to trial for treason in 1681.

Although he was vindicated in this trial, he fell from favor so dramatically that he was forced to flee to the Netherlands in 1682

He died there the next year.

Shaftesbury really a brilliant statesman, but his image has been colored by Dryden’s depiction.

There is no action in the poem. The rebellion is stopped. So for us as readers, the portraits of the people involved are what’s important.

The poem glamorizes the king. It has to, really, and it has to gloss over some of Charles’s faults

David - Charles Absalom - Monmouth Achitophel - Shaftesbury Enemies - the Whig party Zimri - George Villiers, Duke of

Buckingham

Charles’s oldest child and a favorite.

Came to Court 1662, made Duke and married to Anne, Countess of Buccleuch

Military commands on ContinentCaptain General, 1678

Shaftesbury, among others, tried to get Monmouth made heir

Tried to have Charles legitimize him. Started a rumor campaign that Charles

had actually been legally married to Lucy Walters, Monmouth’s mother.

Charles always denied this.

In 1679, Charles sent both Monmouth and the Duke of York (his brother James) into exile.

At this point, he was also pretty disgusted with his brother for his obstinate avowal of his Catholic faith.

Monmouth returned without the king's permission

Forbidden to come to court. Because of anti-Catholic sentiment

welcomed in London and the western counties.

After the arrest of Shaftesbury for treason in 1681 he was heard to speak openly of rebellion.

When a plot to assassinate King Charles and the Duke of York was discovered in 1683 and some of the Whig leaders were arrested, Monmouth fled to Holland.

June 1685, four months after James’s ascension, Monmouth returned to England and raised a small force.

At Taunton he was proclaimed king For a short time his chances for success

looked very promising. Gentry failed to come to his support, and his

army was routed by James's troops. Monmouth was captured and beheaded in

London.

King James Bible is the one that Dryden would have known.

Really beautiful language

Crown party Those who stood for the traditional values of

king and country Dryden, Swift, Behn and Manley are some of

the staunch Tory poets we’ll discuss this term.

It’s also the party associated with the Anglican and Catholic churches, though members of these faiths could be Whigs.

Parliamentarian party associated with the ousted Puritans, but

more with the rising mercantile middle-class people who have earned wealth and position

though hard work and not birth though there were members of the peerage who

were Whigs. Whigs tended to be less conservative,

forward-looking and closer to what we would call “liberal” today.

This is an ancient doctrine that kings received their thrones from God.

A Critical History of English Literature by David Daiches

A Critical History of English Literature by Dr. Mullik

http://hse.etweb.fju.edu.tw/

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