Restoration

1
Restoration 18th Century

• Dryden to Pope to Johnson
• The Age of Reason

2
Restoration 18th Mores-Values

• Time of flux
• Growth of cities
• Increased standards of living
• A nation of readers
• Aggressive market economy
• Move away from agrarian, old values
• Individual rights versus hierarchical values
• Conflict between communities and beliefs to which
  everyone belonged versus new ideas and pleasures

3
Restoration 1660-1700

• 1660-Charles II restored to throne
• Reimposition of Book of Common Prayer-1662
• Barred Nonconformists from religious meetings
  outside established church-1664
• Test Act-1673 Popish Plot-1678Parliament
  dissolved-1681
• Development of two party system-Whigs vs. Tories
• 1685-Death of Charles II James II ascends
• 1688-Glorious Revolution deposition of James II
  (Catholic) accession of William of Orange and
  MaryProtestant daughter of James II

4
Politics of the 18th Century

• 1702-Death of Wm III Queen Anne
  1702-1714-Protestant daughter of James II
• 1702-13 War of Spanish Succession (France-Spain)
• 1714-George I, 1st Hanoverian King-great grandson
  of James I
• 1707-Act of Union with Scotland
• 1710-Tories in power-Robert Harley
• 1721-Whigs under Robert Walpole take power
• 1745-46 Defeat of Jacobite Rebellion Bonnie
  Prince Charlie at Culloden
• 1756-Beginning of 7 Years War-French Indian
  War 1759-Wolfe captures Quebec-Age of Empire
• 1775-American Revolution
• 1783-William Pitt becomes Prime Minister

5
Disasters

• 1668-Triple alliance of England, Holland, Sweden
• 1670s- War with Holland Dutch sail up Thames
  burn Chatham docks (caused by secret Treaty of
  Dover between Charles II and Louis XIV-France)
• 1665-Bubonic plague devastates London
• 1666-Great fire destroys old London

6
Old versus New

• Swift, Pope thought Ancients should be studied
• Galileo, Copernicus, Harvey, Newton moved science
  forward with new ideas
• Defoe, Fielding, Smollett-rise of novel with rise
  of middle class
• Deism versus Orthodoxy
• Empiricism (Bacon, Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, Locke)
  versus Metaphysics (search for essential or
  ultimate principles of reality)

7
Societal Trends

• Rise of middle class English social order of
  thinking and behaving politely
• Rise of sentimentalismhuman beings are naturally
  good and find happiness in being good to others
• Led to social reforms jail improvements relief
  of imprisoned debtors foundling hospitals
  abolition of slave trade
• Doctrine of natural goodness Rousseau-society
  corrupts us noble savage concepteventually
  leads to Romanticism-19th C
• Rise of religious feeling Methodism
• Rise of rights not tradition modern individual

8
Literary Movements

• Age of Dryden-movement to sound critical
  principles of what is fitting right
• Age of Pope-satirical attention to what is
  unfitting and wrong (also Swift)
• Age of Johnson-from imitation of classical modes
  and concludes with confrontation of old
  principles revolutionary ideas

9
More Literary Trends

• Nature universal permanent elements in HUMAN
  experience
• External naturethe landscape as a source of
  pleasure inquiry
• To study NATURE was to study the ancients
• Poet modeled epic, tragedy, comedy, pastoral,
  satire, ode,elegy
• Heroic couplet-Rhymed iambic pentameter couplets

10
Restoration Drama

• Tragedyunities of time, place, action as in
  Drydens All for Love
• Comedy of MannersThe Way of the World, The
  Beaux Strategem
• Sentimental comedySchool for Scandal-later
  comedy of manners
• John Gays The Beggars Opera (1728)

11
Rise of the Novel

• Samuel RichardsonPamela1740
• Henry FieldingTom Jones, Joseph Andrews
• Horace Walpoles The Castle of Otrantothe first
  Gothic novel-1765
• Robinson Crusoe-1719

12
Poetry of the Period

• Begins with DrydenAbsalom Achitophel
• PopeThe Rape of the Lock
• JohnsonThe Vanity of Human Wishes
• Grays Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
• Goldsmith-The Deserted Village

13
Movements Forward19th C

• Leads to Jane Austen
• Sir Walter Scott
• Wordsworth
• Coleridge
• Keats
• Byron
• Shelley

14
END