Restoration and the Eighteenth Century (1660-1800)

The Renaissance began to decline after Queen Elizabeth’s death. Although James I sponsored a new translation of the Bible, patronized Shakespeare, and was a benevolent and peaceful ruler, he was also a spendthrift and a foreigner, and his relationship with his subjects went from bad to worse.

• Charles IJames’ son Charles I was remote, autocratic and self-destructive. He was beheaded in 1649 by the English people.

• Oliver CromwellFor the next eleven years, England was led by Parliament and the Puritan dictator Oliver Cromwell.

TORIES* Supporters of royal authority* Consisted of land-owning aristocrats and conservative Anglicans* No desire for war w/France

WHIGS* Limit royal authority* Leniency toward dissenters; curb French expansion, a threat to England’s commercial interests* Included wealthy merchants, financiers, and some nobility

• Tired of war and revolutionaries, after the death of Cromwell, the English people brought back the son of Charles I-Charles II- from exile in France and crowned him king.

• They then dug up the corpse of Oliver Cromwell who ruled England between Charles I and Charles II and cut off his head.

King Charles II by Nicholas Dixon Vellum

• 1660-1670 saw England exhausted by civil war, fire and disease.

• Similarities between England and Rome-Octavian restoring peace and order -Stuart monarchs restored peace and order after civil wars and execution of King Charles I in 1649.

• Charles II reestablished Anglican church as official church.

• He outlawed all Puritan and Independent sects.

• This persecution lasted through the 18th century.

• In 1642 plays were banned and closed for 29 years by Puritans.

• Charles II loved plays and reopened them in London.

• Female actors were allowed along with males.

• New plays showed relationships in unsentimental, unromantic ways & life of rich and leisured class.

• King Charles II also organized a new group of philosophers and writers.

• Writing became precise, exact, and not decorated with elaborate metaphors or odd allusions.

John Dryden

• This new science influenced religion.

• This movement was called Deism which viewed the universe as a perfect mechanism which God had built and left to run on its own.

• This renewed prosperity, brought about by the restoration of King Charles II, caused a new age to begin.

• Scientists began asking “How” instead of “Why.”

• Disasters were no longer considered punishment or warnings from God. Known as Age of Reason because people used reason, not faith, to make sense of the world.

Sir Isaac Newton led the tone by his formulated laws of gravity and motion. His scientific method consists of analyzing facts, developing a hypothesis and testing that with experimentation.

New Philosophies- If nature operated by simple, orderly laws that are worked out by

logic then human nature can also• John Locke – intelligence

to rid themselves of unjust authorities. Rejecting the “divine right” of kings, Locke provided a logical justification for the Glorious Revolution by asserting the rights of citizens to revolt against an unfair government.

• Also a time of haves and have nots.

• Improvements in living conditions came through items such as inoculation

• Writers, artists, politicians and other members of society met in London’s coffeehouses to exchange ideas, conduct business, and gossip.

• Women held salons to participate in intellectual life.

English writersmodeled works onold Latin classics, which they had studied in school and university. These writings that imitate Latin workswere called Neoclassical —”new classical.”

• Didn’t just report current events; moralized, mocked, gossiped, opinions on social manners to international politics.

• Satisfies middle class for instruction and amusement.

• Joseph Addison and Richard Steele: The Tatler; The Spectator

• People began writing long fictional narratives which came to be known as “novels” or something new.

• They became popular because of a growing middle class.

• They were often broad and comical adventure stories.

• Henry Fielding: Tom Jones• Daniel Defoe: Robinson

Crusoe (considered first novel)

• According to the law, all men were equal. However, some were more equal than others. The Restoration is marked by excess of the wealthy.

• The poor during the Restoration lived in extreme poverty.

• The separation of classes led to the satirical writing style of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope.

Satirical Voices: Neoclassicists used ridicule to point out aspects of society that they felt

needed to be changed. • Followed the Roman

model Horace and Juvenal:

• Horatian satire: gentlePlayful and sympathetic approach

• Juvenalian: dark, biting style

Night by William Hogarth • Satirical writing emerged with Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift.

• Pope addressed the leisured and rich for immorality and bad taste.

• Swift exposed mean and sordid human behavior.

• Both writers hated corrupt politics and materialism.

2nd half of 18th century sometimes known as Age of Johnson

• Samuel Johnson’s essays are classic examples of the formal 18th-century prose in which Johnson was a master.

• Literary dictator of London due to biographies of poets, critiques of poems and other literary works.

• Unable to participate in public intellectual life, women formed salons

• Intellectuals known as bluestockings due to the casually dressed everyday blue stockings (similar to our jeans)

• Began Publishing works

• Mary Wollstonecraft• A Vindication of the Rights of

Women- challenges status quo. Her views were radical at a time when most women accepted inferior status.

Fanny Burney• Her diary gives

modern readers a look at upper class in Age of Johnson

• Novels sentimental and moralistic

• Women’s concerns and portrayal of polite society won her a wide audience

• Artificial and crafted for public

• Author knows purpose and kind

• Careful meter and rhyme

• Elegies: celebrates best in people

• Satire: portrays the worst in people

• Ode: ambitious, pompous expressing a public emotion

• Informal Essay-short work of nonfiction that offered an opinion on a subject

• Letters and diaries were popular• Biographies• Autobiographies and Memoirs