Restoration literature
Restoration literature is the English literature written during the historical period commonly referred to as the English Restoration, which corresponds to the last years of Stuart reign in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In general, the term is used to denote roughly homogeneous styles of literature that centre on a celebration of or reaction to the restored court of Charles II. It is a literature that includes extremes, for it encompasses both Paradise Lost and the Earl of Rochester's Sodom, the high-spirited sexual comedy of The Country Wife and the moral wisdom of The Pilgrim's Progress. It saw Locke's Treatises of Government, the founding of the Royal Society, the experiments and holy meditations of Robert Boyle, the hysterical attacks on theatres from Jeremy Collier, and the pioneering of literary criticism from John Dryden and John Dennis. The period witnessed news becoming a commodity, the essay developing into a periodical art form, and the beginnings of textual criticism.
The dates for Restoration literature are a matter of convention, and they differ markedly from genre to genre. Thus, the "Restoration" in drama may last until 1700, while in poetry it may last only until 1666 and the annus mirabilis; and in prose it might end in 1688, with the increasing tensions over succession and the corresponding rise in journalism and periodicals, or not until 1700, when those periodicals grew more stabilized. In general, scholars use the term "Restoration" to denote the literature that began and flourished under Charles II, whether that literature was the laudatory ode that gained a new life with restored aristocracy, the eschatological literature that showed an increasing despair among Puritans, or the literature of rapid communication and trade that followed in the wake of England's mercantile empire.
File:charles-pineapple.jpg|thumb|right|Charles II being given the first pineapple grown in England by his gardener, John Rose; note also the Cavalier King Charles Spaniels in the foreground
Historical context
During the Interregnum, England had been dominated by Puritan literature and the intermittent presence of official censorship. While some of the Puritan ministers of Oliver Cromwell wrote poetry that was elaborate and carnal, such poetry was not published. Similarly, some of the poets who published with the Restoration produced their poetry during the Interregnum. The official break in literary culture caused by censorship and radically moralist standards effectively created a gap in literary tradition. At the time of the Civil War, poetry had been dominated by metaphysical poetry of the John Donne, George Herbert, and Richard Lovelace sort. Drama had developed the late Elizabethan theatre traditions and had begun to mount increasingly topical and political plays. The Interregnum put a stop, or at least a caesura, to these lines of influence and allowed a seemingly fresh start for all forms of literature after the Restoration.The last years of the Interregnum were turbulent, as were the last years of the Restoration period, and those who did not go into exile were called upon to change their religious beliefs more than once. With each religious preference came a different sort of literature, both in prose and poetry. When Cromwell died and his son, Richard Cromwell, threatened to become Lord Protector, politicians and public figures scrambled to show themselves as allies or enemies of the new regime. Printed literature was dominated by odes in poetry, and religious writing in prose. The industry of religious tract writing, despite official efforts, did not reduce its output. Figures such as the founder of the Society of Friends, George Fox, were jailed by the Cromwellian authorities and published at their own peril.
During the Interregnum, the royalist forces attached to the court of Charles I went into exile with the twenty-year-old Charles II and conducted a brisk business in intelligence and fund-raising for an eventual return to England. Some of the royalist ladies installed themselves in convents in Holland and France that offered safe haven for indigent and travelling nobles and allies. The men similarly stationed themselves in Holland and France, with the court-in-exile being established in The Hague before setting up more permanently in Paris. The nobility who travelled with Charles II were therefore lodged for more than a decade in the midst of the continent's literary scene. As Holland and France in the 17th century were little alike, so the influences picked up by courtiers in exile and the travellers who sent intelligence and money to them were not monolithic. Charles spent his time attending plays in France, and he developed a taste for Spanish plays. Those nobles living in Holland began to learn about mercantile exchange as well as the tolerant, rationalist prose debates that circulated in that officially tolerant nation. John Bramhall, for example, had been a strongly high church theologian, and yet, in exile, he debated willingly with Thomas Hobbes and came into the Restored church as tolerant in practice as he was severe in argument. Courtiers also received an exposure to the Roman Catholic Church and its liturgy and pageants, as well as, to a lesser extent, Italian poetry.
Initial reaction
When Charles II became king in 1660, the sense of novelty in literature was tempered by a sense of suddenly participating in European literature in a way that England had not before. One of Charles's first moves was to reopen the theatres and to grant letters patent giving mandates for the theatre owners and managers. Thomas Killigrew received one of the patents, establishing the King's Company and opening the first patent theatre at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane; Sir William Davenant received the other, establishing the Duke's Company and opening his patent theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Drama was public and a matter of royal concern, and therefore both theatres were charged with producing a certain number of old plays, and Davenant was charged with presenting material that would be morally uplifting. Additionally, the position of Poet Laureate was recreated, complete with payment by a barrel of "sack", and the requirement for birthday odes.Charles II was a man who prided himself on his wit and his worldliness. He was well known as a philanderer as well. Highly witty, playful, and sexually wise poetry thus had court sanction. Charles and his brother James, the Duke of York and future King of England, also sponsored mathematics and natural philosophy, and so spirited scepticism and investigation into nature were favoured by the court. Charles II sponsored the Royal Society, which courtiers were eager to join, just as Royal Society members moved in court. Charles and his court had also learned the lessons of exile. Charles was High Church and James was crypto-Catholic, but royal policy was generally tolerant of religious and political dissenters. While Charles II did have his own version of the Test Act, he was slow to jail or persecute Puritans, preferring merely to keep them from public office. As a consequence, the prose literature of dissent, political theory, and economics increased in Charles II's reign.
Authors moved in two directions in reaction to Charles's return. On the one hand, there was an attempt at recovering the English literature of the Jacobean period, as if there had been no disruption; but, on the other, there was a powerful sense of novelty, and authors approached Gallic models of literature and elevated the literature of wit. The novelty would show in the literature of sceptical inquiry, and the Gallicism would show in the introduction of Neoclassicism into English writing and criticism.
Top-down history
The Restoration is an unusual historical period, as its literature is bounded by a specific political event: the restoration of the Stuart monarchy. It is unusual in another way, as well, for it is a time when the influence of that king's presence and personality permeated literary society to such an extent that, almost uniquely, literature reflects the court. The adversaries of the restoration, the Puritans and democrats and republicans, similarly respond to the peculiarities of the king and the king's personality. Therefore, a top-down view of the literary history of the Restoration has more validity than that of most literary epochs. "The Restoration" as a critical concept covers the duration of the effect of Charles and Charles's manner. This effect extended beyond his death, in some instances, and not as long as his life, in others.Poetry
The Restoration was an age of poetry. Not only was poetry the most popular form of literature, but it was also the most significant form of literature, as poems affected political events and immediately reflected the times. It was, to its own people, an age dominated only by the king, and not by any single genius. Throughout the period, the lyric, ariel, historical, and epic poem was being developed.The English epic
Even without the introduction of Neo-classical criticism, English poets were aware that they had no national epic. Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene was well known, but England, unlike France with The Song of Roland or Spain with the Cantar de Mio Cid or, most of all, Italy with the Aeneid, had no epic poem of national origins. Several poets attempted to supply this void.Sir William Davenant was the first Restoration poet to attempt an epic. His unfinished Gondibert was of epic length, and it was admired by Hobbes. However, it also used the ballad form, and other poets, as well as critics, were very quick to condemn this rhyme scheme as unflattering and unheroic. The prefaces to Gondibert show the struggle for a formal epic structure, as well as how the early Restoration saw themselves in relation to Classical literature.
Although today he is studied separately from the Restoration period, John Milton's Paradise Lost was published during that time. Milton no less than Davenant wished to write the English epic, and chose blank verse as his form. Milton rejected the cause of English exceptionalism: his Paradise Lost seeks to tell the story of all mankind, and his pride is in Christianity rather than Englishness.
Significantly, Milton began with an attempt at writing an epic on King Arthur, for that was the matter of English national founding. While Milton rejected that subject, in the end, others made the attempt. Richard Blackmore wrote both a Prince Arthur and King Arthur. Both attempts were long and soporific, and failed both critically and popularly. Indeed, the poetry was so slow that the author became known as "Never-ending Blackmore".
The Restoration period ended without an English epic. Beowulf may now be called the English epic, but the work was unknown to Restoration authors, and Old English was incomprehensible to them.