English Literature: The period from The Puritan Age and The Restoration

English Literature The period from The Puritan Age and The Restoration-1600 to 1700

English Literature: The period from The Puritan Age and The Restoration-1600 to 1700

Introduction: The 17th century marked a shift from an age of faith to an age of reason. Literature represents the turbulence in society, religion, and the monarchy of this period. Life for the English people changed as religious controversy and civil war shook the nation. These issues reformulated the role of individuals in society, perspectives of faith, and social structures in England. Writers of this period offer their philosophies as proof of the issues and influenced the masses. Specific examples of authors of this period who present English issues and perspectives in their works are John Donne and John Milton. Common themes among these two authors are love, religion, and political views.English Literature: The period from The Puritan Age and The Restoration

The Puritan Age (1600-1660).  The Literature of the Seventeenth Century may be divided into the following two periods.

Ø  The Puritan Age or the Age of Milton (1600-1660), is further divided into the Jacobean and Caroline periods after the names of the ruled James I and Charles I, who rules from 1603 to 1625 and 1625 to 1649 respectively. 

The Restoration Period or the Age of Dryden (1660-1700). 

Ø    The Seventeenth Century was marked by the decline of the Renaissance spirit, and the writers either imitated the great masters of the Elizabethan period or followed new paths.

Though during the Elizabethan period, the new spirit of the Renaissance had broken away from the medieval times and started a new modern development it was in the seventeenth century that this task of breaking away from the past was completely accomplished, and the modern spirit, in the fullest sense of the term, came into being In other words, it was the spirit of science popularized by such great men as Newton, Bacon, and Descartes.

In the field of literature, this spirit established itself in the form of criticism, which in England is the creation of the Seventeenth Century. During the Sixteenth Century England expanded in all directions; in the Seventeenth Century people took stock of what had been acquired. They also analyzed, classified, and systematized it. For the first time, the writers began using the English language as a vehicle for storing and conveying facts. One very important and significant feature of this new spirit of observation and analysis was the popularization of the art of biography which was unknown during the Sixteenth Century.

 Thus whereas we have no recorded information about the life of such an eminent dramatist as Shakespeare, in the seventeenth century many authors like Fuller and Aubrey laboriously collected and chronicled the smallest facts about the great men of their day, or of the immediate past. The autobiography also came in the wake of biography, and later on keeping diaries and writing journals became popular, for example, Pepy‘s Diary and Fox‘s Journal.

The Seventeenth Century up to 1660 was dominated by Puritanism and it may be called the Puritan Age or the Age of Milton who was the noblest representative of the Puritan spirit. Broadly speaking, the Puritan movement in literature may be considered the second and greater Renaissance, marked by the rebirth of the moral nature of man which followed the intellectual awakening of Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Though during the Restoration period the Puritans began to be looked down upon as narrow-minded, gloomy dogmatists, who were against all sorts of recreations and amusements they were not so. Moreover, though they were profoundly religious, they did not form a separate religious sect. It would be a grave travesty of facts if we call Milton and Cromwell, who fought for the liberty of the people against the tyrannical rule of Charles I, narrow-minded fanatics. So when Charles I was defeated and beheaded in 1649 and Puritanism came out triumphant with the establishment of the Commonwealth under Cromwell, severe laws were passed In the literature of the Puritan Age we find the same confusion as we find in religion and politics. The literary achievements of this so-called gloomy age are not of a high order, but it had the honor of producing one solitary master of verse whose work would shed luster on any age or people John Milton, who was the noblest and indomitable representative of the Puritan spirit to which he gave a loftiest and enduring expression.  

Puritan Poetry 

The Puritan poetry, also called the Jacobean and Caroline Poetry during the reigns of James I and Charles I respectively, can be divided into the following three parts:

Ø    Poetry of the School of Spenser

Ø    Poetry of the Metaphysical School

Ø    Poetry of the Cavalier Poets.  

The School of Spenser         The Spenserians were the followers of Spenser. Despite the changing conditions and literary tastes which resulted in a reaction against the diffuse, flamboyant, Italianate poetry which Spenser and Sidney had made fashionable during the sixteenth century, they preferred to follow Spenser and considered him as their master. The most thorough-going disciples of Spenser during the reign of James I were as follows:

Ø    Phineas Fletcher (1582-1648)

Ø    Giles Fletcher (1583-1623)

They were both priests and Fellows of Cambridge University. Phineas Fletcher wrote several Spenserian pastorals and allegories. His most ambitious poem is The Purple Island. Giles Fletcher was more lyrical and mystical than his brother, and he also made a happier choice of subjects. His Christ‟s Victorian and Triumph in Heaven and Earth over and after Death (1610). Other poets who wrote under the influence of Spenser were as follows:

Ø   William Browne (1590-1645) Britannia’s Pastorals which shows al l the characteristics of Elizabethan pastoral poetry.

Ø    George Wither (1588-1667) His best-known poems are The Shepherd’s Hunting a series of personal eulogies, Fidella a heroic epistle of over twelve hundred lines; and Fair Virtue, the Mistress of Philarete a sustained and detailed lyrical eulogy of an ideal woman.

Ø    William Drummond (1585-1649) who was a Scottish poet, wrote several pastorals, sonnets, songs, elegies, and religious poems. His poetry is the product of a scholar of refined nature, high imaginative faculty, and musical ear. His indebtedness to Spenser, Sidney, and Shakespeare in the matter of fine phraseology is quite obvious.

The Poets of the Metaphysical School. The metaphysical poets were John Donne, Herrick, Thomas Carew, Richard Crashaw, Henry Vaughan, George Herbert, and Lord Herbert of Cherbury. The leader of this school was Donne. They are highly philosophical, but because their poetry is full of conceits, exaggerations, pedantry about the meanings of words, display of learning, and far-fetched similes and metaphors.

It was Dr. Johnson who in his essay on Abraham Cowley in his Lives of the Poets used the term metaphysical ‘. There he wrote, about the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets. The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning was their whole endeavor, Metaphysical school of poets, and the above statement is full of exaggeration, yet he pointed out the salient characteristics of this school. The metaphysical poets were honest, original thinkers. They tried to analyze their feelings and experience even the experience of love. They were also aware of life and were concerned with death, burial descent into hell, etc. Though they hoped for immortality, they were obsessed with the consciousness of mortality which was often expressed in a mood of slushy disgust. 

John Donne (1537-1631)

The leader of the Metaphysical school of poets, had a very cheerful career until he became the Dean of St. Paul. Though his main work was to deliver religious sermons, he wrote poetry of a very high order. His best-known works are

Ø    The Progress of the Soul

Ø    An Anatomy of the World, an elegy

Ø    Epithalamium.

His poetry can be divided into the following three parts

Ø  Amorous     In his amorous lyrics which include his earliest

     work, he broke away from the Petrarchan model so popular

    among the Elizabethan poets and expressed the experience 

    of love realistically.

Ø    Metaphysical

Ø    Satirical

His metaphysical and satirical works which form a major portion of his poetry were written in later years. The Progress of the Soul and Metempsychosis, in which Donne pursues the passage of the soul through various migrations, including those of a bird and fish, is a fine illustration of his metaphysical poetry.

A good illustration of his satire is his fourth satire describing the character of a bore. They were written in rhymed couplets and influenced both Dryden and Pope.

Donne has often been compared to Browning on account of his metrical roughness, obscurity, ardent imagination, taste for metaphysics, and unexpected divergence into sweet and delightful music. But there is one important difference between Donne and Browning. Donne is a poet of wit while Browning is a poet of ardent passion. Donne deliberately broke away from the Elizabethan tradition of the smooth sweetness of verse and introduced a harsh and stucco method. His influence on contemporary poets was far from being desirable because whereas they imitated his harshness, they could not come up to the level of his original thought and sharp wit. Like Browning, Donne has no sympathy for the reader who cannot follow his keen and incisive thought, while his poetry is most difficult to understand because of its careless verification and excessive terseness. Some followers of Donne are as under:

Ø    Robert Herrick (1591-1674) wrote amorous as well as religious verse, but it is on account of the poems of the former type of love poems, for which he is famous. Herrick is included in the metaphysical school of Donne.

Ø    Thomas Carew (1598-1639), on whom the influence of Donne was stronger, was the finest lyric writer of his age. Though he lacks the spontaneity and freshness of Herrick, he is superior to him in fine workmanship.

Ø    Richard Crashaw (1613? -1649) possessed a temperament different from that of Herrick or Carew. He was a fundamentally religious poet, and his best work is The Flaming Heart. 

Ø    Henry Vaughan (1622-1695), though a mystic like Crashaw, was equally at home in sacred as well as secular verse. Though lacking the vigor of Crashaw, Vaughan is more uniform and clear, tranquil and deep.

Ø    George Herbert (1593-1633) is the most widely read of all the poets belonging to the metaphysical school, except, of course, Donne. This is due to the clarity of his expression and the transparency of his conceits. 

Ø    Lord Herbert of Cherbury is inferior as a verse writer to his brother George Herbert, but he is best remembered as the author of an autobiography. Moreover, he was the first poet to use the meter which was made famous by Tennyson in In Memoriam. Other poets who are also included in the group of Metaphysical are 

Ø    Abraham Cowley (1618- 1667) He is famous for his ‗Pindaric Odes‘which influenced English poetry throughout the eighteenth century.

Ø    Andrew Marvel (1621-1672) Marvel is famous for his loyal friendship with Milton, and because his poetry shows the conflict between the two schools of Spenser and Donne.

Ø    Edmund Waller (1606-1687) Waller was the first to use the closed ‘couplet which dominated English poetry for the next century.

The Metaphysical poets show the spiritual and moral fervor of the Puritans as well as the frank amorous tendency of the Elizabethans. Sometimes like the Elizabethans, they sing of making the best of life as it lasts Gather ye Rosebuds while ye may and at other times they seek more permanent comfort in the delight of spiritual experience.  

The Cavalier Poets 

Whereas the metaphysical poets followed the lead of Donne, the cavalier poets followed Ben Jonson. Jonson followed the classical method in his poetry as in his drama. He imitated Horace by writing, like him, satires, elegies, epistles, and complimentary verses. But though his verse possesses classical dignity and good sense, it does not have its grace and ease. His lyrics and songs also differ from those of Shakespeare. Whereas Shakespeare‘s songs are pastoral, popular, and artless Jonson‘s are sophisticated, particularized, and have intellectual and emotional rationality.

 Like the metaphysical ‘, the label Cavalier ‘is not correct, because a Cavalier means a royalist one who fought on the side of the king during the Civil War. The followers of Ben Jonson were not all royalists, but this label once used has stuck with them. Moreover, there is not much difference between the Cavalier and Metaphysical poets. Some Cavalier poets like Carew, Suckling, and Lovelace were also disciples of Donne. Even some typical poems, of Donne and Ben Jonson, are very much alike. The important Cavalier poets were Herrick, Lovelace, Suckling, and Carew. Though they wrote generally in a lighter vein, they could not completely escape the tremendous seriousness of Puritanism.

Carew and Herrick are among the metaphysical group of poets. Sir John Suckling (1609-1642), a courtier of Charles I, wrote poetry because it was considered a gentleman‘s accomplishment in those days. Most of his poems are trivial; written in doggerel verse. Sir Richard Lovelace (1618-1658) was another follower of King Charles I. His volume of love lyrics Lucasta are on a higher plane than Suckling‘s work, and some of his poems like To Lucasta, and To Althea, from Prison, have won a secure place in English poetry.  

John Milton (1608-1674)  

Milton was the greatest poet of the Puritan age, and he stands head and shoulders above all his contemporaries. Though he completely identified himself with Puritanism, he possessed such a strong personality that he cannot be taken to represent anyone but himself. Paying a just tribute to the dominating personality of Milton, Wordsworth wrote the famous line The soul was like a star and dwelt apart. Though Milton praised Spenser, Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson as poets, he was different from them all. We do not find the energy of Spenser in his poetry. Unlike Shakespeare, Milton is superbly egoistic. In his verse, which is harmonious and musical, we find no trace of the harshness of Ben Jonson. In all his poetry, Milton sings about himself and his lofty soul.

Being a deeply religious man and also endowed with the artistic merit of a high degree, he combined in himself the spirits of the Renaissance and the Reformation. No other English poet was so profoundly religious and so much an artist. Milton was a great scholar of classical as well as Hebrew literature. He was also a child of the Renaissance and a great humanist. As an artist, he may be called the last Elizabethan. From his young days, he began to look upon poetry as a serious business of life and he made up his mind to dedicate himself to it, and, in course of time, write a poem that the world would not let die.‖ Milton‘s early poetry is lyrical. The important poems of the early period are:

Ø    The Hymn on the Nativity (1629);

Ø    L‟Allegro, Il Penseroso (1632)

Ø    Lycidas (1637)

Ø    Comus (1934).

The Hymn, written when Milton was only twenty-one, shows that his lyrical genius was already highly developed. The complementary poems, L‟ Allego and Il Penseroso, are full of very pleasing descriptions of rural scenes and recreations in Spring and Autumn. L‟Allegro represents the poet in a gay and merry mood and it paints an idealized picture of rustic life from dawn to dusk. Il Penseroso is written in serious and meditative strain.

When the Civil War broke out in 1642, Milton threw himself, heart and soul, into the struggle against King Charles I. He devoted the best years of his life, when his poetical powers were at their peak, to this national movement. Finding himself unfit to fight as a soldier he became the Latin Secretary to Cromwell. This work he continued to do till 1649 when Charles I was defeated and Commonwealth was proclaimed under Cromwell. But when he returned to poetry to accomplish the ideal, he had in his mind, Milton found himself completely blind. Moreover, after the death of Cromwell and the coming of Charles II to the throne, Milton became friendless. His wife and daughters turned against him. But undaunted by all these misfortunes, Milton girded up his loins and wrote his greatest poetical work:

Ø    Paradise Lost,

Ø    Paradise Regained

Ø    Samson Agonistes.

The subject matter of Paradise Lost consists of the casting out from Heaven of the fallen angels, their planning of revenge in Hell, Satan‘s flight, Man‘s temptation and fall from grace, and the promise of redemption. Against this vast background, Milton projects his philosophy of the purposes of human existence, and attempts to justify the ways of God to men.‖ On account of the richness and profusion of its imagery, descriptions of strange lands and seas, and the use of strange geographical, names, Paradise Lost is called the last great Elizabethan poem. But its perfectly organized design, its firm outlines and Latinised diction make it essentially a product of the neoclassical or the Augustan period in English Literature. In Paradise Lost, the most prominent is the figure of Satan who possesses the qualities of Milton himself, and who represents the indomitable heroism of the Puritans against Charles I. What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield, And what is else, not to be overcome. It is written in blank verse by the Elizabethan dramatist, but it is hardened and strengthened to suit the requirements of an epic poet. Paradise Regained which deals with the subject of Temptation in the Wilderness is written, unlike Paradise Lost, in the form of discussion and not action. Not so sublime as Paradise Lost, It has a quieter atmosphere, but it does not betray a decline in poetic power. The mood of the poet has become different. The central figure is Christ, having the Puritanic austere and stoic qualities rather than the tenderness which is generally associated with him. In Samson Agonistes Milton deals with an ancient Hebrew legend of Samson, the mighty champion of Israel, now blind and scorned, working as a slave among Philistines. This tragedy, which is written on the Greek model, is charged with the tremendous personality of Milton himself, who in the character of the blind giant, Samson, surrounded by enemies, projects his own unfortunate experience in the reign of Charles II. Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves. The magnificent lyrics in this tragedy, which express the heroic faith of the long-suffering Puritans, represent the summit of technical excellence achieved by Milton.

Jacobean and Caroline Drama  

After Shakespeare, drama in England suffered a decline during the reigns of James I and Charles I. The heights reached by Shakespeare could not be kept by later dramatists, and drama in the hands of Beaumont and Fletcher and others became, what may be called, decadent ‘. In other words, the real spirit of the Elizabethan drama disappeared, and only the outward show and trappings remained. For example, sentiment took the place of character; eloquent and moving speeches, instead of being subservient to the revelation of the fine shades of character, became important in themselves; dreadful deeds were described not to throw light on the working of the human heart as was done by Shakespeare, but to produce a rhetorical effect on the audience. Moreover, instead of fortitude and courage, and sterner qualities, which were held in high esteem by the Elizabethan dramatists, resignation to fate expressed in the form of broken accents of pathos and woe, became the main characteristics of the hero. Whereas Shakespeare and other Elizabethan dramatists took delight in action and the emotions associated with it, the Jacobean and Caroline dramatists gave expression to passive suffering and lack of mental and physical vigor. Moreover, whereas the Elizabethan dramatists were sometimes, coarse and showed bad taste, these later dramatists were positively and deliberately indecent. Instead of devoting all their capacity to fully illuminating the subject at hand, they made it an instrument of exercising their power of rhetoric and pedantry. Thus in the hands of these dramatists of the inferior type the romantic drama which had achieved great heights during the Elizabethan period, suffered a terrible decline, and when the Puritans closed the theatres in 1642, it died a natural death. The greatest dramatist of the Jacobean period was Ben Jonson who has already been dealt with in the Renaissance Period, as much of his work belongs to it. The other dramatists of the Jacobean and Caroline periods are as follows:

Ø    John Marston (1575-1634)

Ø    Thomas Dekker (1570-1632)

Ø    Thomas Heywood (1575-1650)

Ø    Thomas Middleton (1580-1627)

Ø    Cyril Tourneur (1575-1626)

Ø    John Webster (1575-1625?)

Ø    John Fletcher (1579-1625)

Ø    Francis Beaumont (1584-1616)

Ø    Philip Massinger (1583-1640) and John Ford (1586-1639)

Ø    James Shirley (1596-1666).  

When the theatres were closed in 1642 by the order of the Parliament controlled by the Puritans. They were opened only eighteen years later at the Restoration.  

Jacobean and Caroline Prose  

This period was rich in prose. The great prose writers were Bacon, Burton, Milton, Sir Thomas Browne, Jeremy Tayler, and Clarendon. English prose which had been formed into a harmonious and pliable instrument by the Elizabethans, began to be used in various ways, as a narrative as well as a vehicle for philosophical speculation and scientific knowledge. For the first time, great scholars began to write in English rather than Latin. The greatest single influence which enriched the English prose was the Authorised Version of the Bible (English translation of the Bible), which was the result of the efforts of scholars who wrote in a forceful, simple and pure Anglo- Saxon tongue avoiding all that was rough, foreign and affected. So the Bible became the supreme example of earlier English prose-style simple, plain and natural. As it was read by the people in general, its influence was all-pervasive.

Francis Bacon (1561-1628). 

Bacon belongs both to the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.  He was a lawyer possessing great intellectual gifts. Ben Jonson wrote of him, no man ever coughed or turned aside from him without a loss. As a prose-writer, he is the master of the aphoristic style. He has the knack of compressing his wisdom in epigrams which contain the quintessence of his rich experience of life in a most concentrated form. His style is clear and lucid but terse and that is why one has to make an effort to understand his meaning. It lacks spaciousness, ease, and rhythm. The reader has always to be alert because each sentence is packed with meaning. Bacon is best known for his Essays, in which he has given his views about the art of managing men and getting on successfully in life. They may be considered a kind of manual for statesmen and princes. The tone of the essay is that of a worldly man who wants to secure material success and prosperity. That is why their moral standard is not high. Besides the Essays, Bacon wrote Henry VII the first piece of scientific history in the English language; and The Advancement of Learning which is a brilliant popular exposition of the cause of scientific investigation. Though Bacon himself did not make any great scientific discoveries, he popularized science through his writings. On account of his being the intellectual giant of his time, he is credited with the authorship of plays of Shakespeare. 

Robert Burton (1577-1640) is known for his The Anatomy of Melancholy, which is a book of its type in the English language. In it, he has analyzed human melancholy, described its effect, and prescribed its cure. But more than that the book deals with all the ills that flesh is heir to, and the author draws his material from writers, ancient as well as modern. It is written in a straightforward, simple, and vigorous style, which at times is marked with rhythm and beauty.

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) belonged entirely to a different category. With him, the manner of writing is more important than the substance. He is, therefore, the first deliberate stylist in the English language, the forerunner of Charles Lamb and Stevenson. Being a physician with a flair for writing, he wrote Religio Medici in which he set down his beliefs and thoughts, the religion of the medical man. In this book, which is written in an amusing, personal style, the conflict between the author‘s intellect and his religious beliefs, gives it a peculiar charm. Every sentence has the stamp of Browne‘s individuality.

 His other important prose work is Hydriotaphia or The Urn Burial, in which meditating on time and antiquity Browne reaches the heights of rhetorical splendor. He is greater as an artist than a thinker, and his prose is highly complex in its structure and almost poetic in the richness of language. Other writers of his period, who were, like Browne, the masters of rhetorical prose, were:

Ø    Milton

Ø    Jeremy Taylor

Ø    Clarendon

Most of Milton‘s prose writings are concerned with the questions at issue between the Parliament and the King. Being the champion of freedom in every form, he wrote a forceful tract On the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, in which he strongly advocated the right to divorce. His most famous prose work is Areopagitica which was occasioned by a parliamentary order for submitting the press to censorship. Here Milton vehemently criticized the bureaucratic control over genius. Though as a pamphleteer Milton at times indulges in downright abuse, and he lacks humor and lightness of touch, there is that inherent sublimity in his prose writings, which we associate with him as a poet and man. When he touches a noble thought, the wings of his imagination lift him to majestic heights.

Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), a bishop, made himself famous through his literary sermons. On account of the gentle charm of his language, the richness of his images, and his profoundly human imagination, Taylor is considered one of the masters of English eloquence. His best prose famous book of devotion among English men and women. Thus, during this period, we find English prose developing into a grandiloquent and rich instrument capable of expressing all types of ideas scientific, religious, philosophic, poetic, and personal. 

Clarendon (1609-1674) Opposed to Milton, the greatest writer in the parliamentary struggle was the Earl of His prose is stately, and he always writes with a rather offensive bias, as we find in his History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England. 

The Restoration Period (1660-1700)

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. It is called the Age of Dryden because Dryden was the dominating and most representative literary figure of the Age. As the Puritans who were previously controlling the country, and were supervising her literary and moral, and social standards, were finally defeated, a reaction was launched against whatever they held sacred They renounced old ideals and demanded that English poetry and drama should follow the style to which they had become accustomed in the gaiety of Paris. Instead of having Shakespeare and the Elizabethans as their models, the poets and dramatists of the Restoration period began to imitate French writers and especially their vices. The result was that the old Elizabethan spirit with its patriotism, its love of adventure and romance, its creative vigor, and the Puritan spirit with its moral discipline and love of liberty, became things of the past. For a time in poetry, drama, and prose nothing was produced which could compare satisfactorily with the great achievements of the Elizabethans, of Milton, and even of minor writers of the Puritan age. 

Restoration Poetry

John Dryden (1631-1700) 

Restoration poetry was mostly satirical, realistic, and written in the heroic couplet, of which Dryden was the supreme master. He was the dominating figure of the Restoration period, and he made his mark in the fields of poetry, drama, and prose.

In the field of poetry, he was, in fact, the only poet worth mentioning. In his youth, he came under the influence of Cowley, and his early poetry has the characteristic conceits and exaggerations of the metaphysical school. But in his later years, he emancipated himself from the false taste and artificial style of the metaphysical writers and wrote in a clear and forceful style which laid the foundation of the classical school of poetry in England. The poetry of Dryden can be conveniently divided under three heads Political Satires, Doctrinal Poems, and The Fables. 

Ø    Of his political satires, Absolem and Achitophel and The Medal are well-known. In Absolem and Achitophel, which is one of the greatest political satires in the English language, Dryden defended the King against the Earl of Shaftesbury who is represented as Achitophel. It contains powerful character studies of Shaftesbury and of the Duke of Buckingham who is represented as Zimri. 

Ø  The Medal is another satirical poem full of invective against Shaftesbury and MacFlecknoe. It also contains a scathing personal attack on Thomas Shadwell who was once a friend of Dryden.

Ø    The two great doctrinal poems of Dryden are Religio Laici and The Hind and the Panther. These poems are neither religious nor devotional, but theological and controversial. The first was written when Dryden was a Protestant, and it defends the Anglican Church.

Ø    The second period when Dryden had become a Catholic, vehemently defends Catholicism. They, therefore, show Dryden‘s power and skill of defending any position he took up, and his mastery in presenting an argument in verse. The Fables, which were written during the last years of Dryden‘s life, show no decrease in his poetic power. 

Ø    His Alexander‟s Feast is one of the best odes in the English language. The poetry of Dryden possesses all the characteristics of the Restoration period and is therefore thoroughly representative of that age. It does not have the poetic glow, spiritual fervor, moral loftiness, and philosophical depth which were sadly lacking in the Restoration period. 

Restoration Drama  

In 1642 the theatres were closed by the authority of the parliament which was dominated by Puritans and so no good plays were written from 1642 till the Restoration (coming back of monarchy in England with the accession of Charles II to the throne) in 1660 when the theatres were re-opened. The drama in England after 1660, called the Restoration drama, showed entirely new trends on account of the long break with the past. Moreover, it was greatly affected by the spirit of the new age which was deficient in poetic feeling, imagination, and emotional approach to life, but emphasized prose as the medium of expression, and intellectual, realistic and critical approach to life and its problems. As the common people still under the influence of Puritanism had no love for the theatres, the dramatists had to cater to the taste of the aristocratic class which was highly fashionable, frivolous, cynical, and sophisticated. These new trends in comedy are seen in the following:

Ø    Dryden‘s Wild Gallant (1663)

Ø    Etheredge‘s (1635-1691) 

Ø    The Comical Revenge or Love in a Tub (1664),

Ø    Wycherley‘s The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer

Ø    The plays of Vanbrugh and Farquhar.

But the most gifted among all the Restoration dramatists was William Congreve (1670-1720) who wrote all his best plays he was thirty years of age. His well-known comedies are Love for Love (1695) and The Way of the World (1700).

Dryden‘s altered attitude is seen more clearly in his next play All for Love (1678). Thus he writes in the preface In my style I have professed to imitate Shakespeare which that I might perform more freely, I have disencumbered myself from rhyme. He shifts his ground from the typical heroic tragedy in this play, drops rhyme, and questions the validity of the unities of time, place, and action in the conditions of the English stage. He also gives up the literary rules observed by French dramatists and follows the laws of drama formulated by the great dramatists of England. Another important way in which Dryden turns himself away from the conventions of the heroic tragedy is that he does not give a happy ending to this play.  

Restoration Prose 

The Restoration period was deficient in poetry and drama, but in prose, it holds its head much higher. Of course, it cannot be said that the Restoration prose enjoys absolute supremacy in English literature because, on account of the fall of poetic power, lack of inspiration, and preference the merely practical and prosaic subjects and approaches to life, it could not reach those heights which it attained in the preceding period in the hands of Milton and Browne, or the succeeding ages in the hands of Lamb, Hazlitt, Ruskin, and Carlyle. But it has to be admitted that it was during the Restoration period that English prose was developed as a medium for expressing clearly and precisely average ideas and feelings about miscellaneous matters for which prose is meant.

For the first time, a prose style was evolved which could be used for plain narrative, argumentative exposition of intricate subjects, and the handling of practical business. The elaborate Elizabethan prose was unsuited for telling a plain story. The epigrammatic style of Bacon, the grandiloquent prose of Milton, and the dreamy harmonies of Browne could not be adapted to scientific, historical, political, and philosophical writings, and, above all, to novel writing. Thus, with the change in the temper of the people, a new type of prose, as was developed in the Restoration period, was essential. As in the fields of poetry and drama, Dryden was the chief leader and practitioner of the new prose.

Dryden In his greatest critical work Essay of Dramatic Poesy, Dryden presented a model of the new prose, which was completely different from the prose of Bacon, Milton, and Browne. He wrote in a plain, simple and exact style, free from all exaggerations. His Fables and the Preface to them are fine examples of the prose style in which Dryden was introduced.

John Bunyan (1628-1688). Next to Dryden, Bunyan was the greatest prose-writer of the period. Like Milton, he was imbued with the spirit of Puritanism, and, if Milton is the greatest poet of Puritanism, Bunyan is its greatest storyteller. To him also goes the credit of being the precursor of the English novel. His greatest work is The Pilgrim’s Progress. Just as Milton wrote his Paradise Lost to justify the ways to God to men‖, Bunyan‘s aim in The Pilgrim’s Progress was” to lead men and women into God‘s way, the way of salvation, through a simple parable with homely characters and exciting events. The prose of Bunyan shows clearly the influence of the English translation of the Bible (The Authorized Version). He was neither a scholar nor did he belong to any literary school all that he knew and learned was derived straight from the English Bible.

#Literature
#Puritan 
#Restoration