The thick line shows the period of active literary work.
1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 | | | | | | | | |║[132] | | | |║ | Dryden |........|║===================================║ | (1631–1700) | | | | | | | | | ║[133] | ║ |║ | | | Butler |........|.║===========║...|║ | | | (1612–80) | | | | | | | | | | ║ ║ | | | | Wycherley |........|........|..║===║ |........|........|........| (1640–1715) | | | | | | | | | |║ | | ║[134] ║| | Congreve | | |║.......|........|.║=====║|........| (1670–1729) | | | | | | | | |║ | ║[135] ║| ║ | | | Bunyan |........|║=========║=====║|.....║ | | | (1628–1688) | | | ║ | | | | | |║ | | | | ║ | Evelyn |........|║======================================║ | (1620–1706) | | | | | | | | |║ | | | | ║ | Pepys |........|║=====================================║ | (1633–1703) |
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (1660–1700)
Three historical events deeply influenced the literary movements of the time: the Restoration of the year 1660; the Roman Catholic controversy that raged during the latter half of Charles II’s reign; and the Revolution of the year 1688.
1. The Restoration (1660). The Restoration of Charles II brought about a revolution in our literature. With the collapse of the Puritan Government there sprang up activities that had been so long suppressed that they flew to violent excesses. The Commonwealth had insisted on gravity and decorum in all things; the Restoration encouraged a levity that often became immoral and indecent. Along with much that is sane and powerful, this latter tendency is prominent in the writing of the time, especially in the comedies.
2. The Religious Question. The strength of the religious-political passions of the time is reflected in the current literature. The religion of the King was suspect; that of his brother James was avowedly Papist; and James was the heir-apparent to the crown. There was a prevalent suspicion of the Catholics, which, though it might have been groundless, was of such depth and intensity that it colors all the writings of the time. The lies of Titus Oates added to the popular frenzy, so that when the Earl of Shaftesbury sought to exclude James from the throne and supplant him by the Duke of Monmouth it needed all the efforts of Charles (himself secretly a Roman Catholic) to save his brother. The famous poem of Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, is an outstanding example of a kind of poem that abounded during those troubled years.
3. The Revolution (1688). James succeeded to the throne in 1685; but so soon did he reveal his Roman Catholic prejudices that he was rejected in three years and was replaced by Protestant sovereigns. Henceforth religious passions diminish in intensity; and the literature of the succeeding years tends to emphasize the political rather than the religious side of public affairs.
THE NEW CLASSICISM
By the year 1660 Elizabethan romanticism had all but spent itself. Of the great figures of the earlier era only one survived, John Milton, and he had still to write Paradise Lost; but in everything Milton was of the past. At the Restoration he retired and worked in obscurity, and his great poem reveals no signs of the time in which his later years were cast.