It is strange that such a time of upheaval should have produced the greatest Christian epic, The Paradise Lost, and the greatest Christian allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress, which are to be found in any literature. Three great men represented the various forms of the religious struggle going forward; the saintly Jeremy Taylor, a poet among preachers, upheld the cause of Episcopacy; Richard Baxter, while desiring the church discipline and the form of belief, advocated a greater liberty for the individual conscience; and John Milton was a type of the religious freedom and toleration which found best exposition in the principles of the Independents. Milton’s Eikonoklastes broke down the buttresses of kingly authority; his Areopagitica was a noble argument in behalf of intellectual liberty; while his Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes were not merely magnificently great as poetry, but Christian evidences of the most sublime type.
John Bunyan, a man of the people, came forward with words that burn and images that enthrall, to show the way from a world of vice to a pure and Holy City. Thomas Fuller, remembering that “blessed are the peacemakers,” sought to heal that strife between king and people which was beyond all healing save that of the sword. Some men held themselves aloof from violent controversy while yet maintaining independence of thought—as, for example, Thomas Browne in the Religio Medici, published in 1642.
The anti-Puritans had their champions in Samuel Butler, whose fierce wit blazed forth in Hudibras; in the great Royalist writer, Clarendon; and in that staunch Royalist and Churchman, Bishop South, whose antipathy to the Nonconformists may be partly condoned by his brilliant wit. Among other writers of the time may be mentioned the versatile Barrow; the powerful satirists Wither, and Bishop Hall; Harrington, the author of the Oceana; the patriotic Algernon Sidney, with his admirable Discourses on Government; and those garrulous but inimitable chroniclers, Pepys and Evelyn.
The poets were many and varied, including Waller, Davenant, Denham, Marvell, Lovelace, and Cowley.
PERIOD OF THE RESTORATION TO THE RISE OF THE NOVEL, 1660-1740
Extremes always lead to revulsion, and from Puritanism we pass to the licentious court of Charles II., with the songs of Rochester, and the works of Etherege. The comic dramatists of the Restoration and the period immediately succeeding—Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar—vividly and wittily reflect the glittering life and base morality of the age. One stronger intellect did bring with it for a time the sense of a fresher and diviner air, when John Dryden sang with vigor and insight, and also produced his best comedies and tragedies. Otway likewise showed a momentary gleam of the old Elizabethan dramatic fire. In the sphere of mental and natural philosophy, Locke, Newton, and Boyle grappled with problems hitherto considered unsolvable, and illumined for the world the devious and mysterious paths of scientific inquiry. The selection of names in every branch of English literature, and in every age, can, of course, only be illustrative, not exhaustive.
Period of Dryden and Pope.—The eighteenth century witnessed a great revolution in English literature, especially on the poetic side. Imagination, passion, and nature were dethroned, and poetry became didactic, philosophical, and political.
Dryden manifested something of the qualities of both schools, but when Alexander Pope arose the new order triumphed. Everything was sacrificed to precision and artificiality.
Pope was the most brilliant and impressive of the new writers. His Essay on Man and his Essay on Criticism enshrined many old philosophical truths in epigrammatic form. The heroic couplet became in his hands an instrument for cutting diamonds, but the lover of poetry longs after a time to exchange his dazzling couplets for the flowers of poesy. In all that he did, however, whether the work took the form of satires, essays, epistles, or translations, Pope was the finished artist.
The minor poets of Pope’s period included John Philips, known by his Splendid Shilling; John Gay, the author of the Shepherd’s Week, and the Fables; Samuel Garth, the writer of the mock heroic poem of The Dispensary; and Richard Blackmore, who tried to restore the epic in Prince Arthur.