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RESTORATION1660-1798

Background and Vocabulary

Notes from British

Lit. Textbook and

Denise Trimm

IN THE SHADOW OF ELIZABETH

• After James I, his weak son Charles I came to throne, but the Puritans and their parliamentary party had gained power.

• By 1642 England was embroiled in civil war between the parliamentary party and the Royalists.

• Charles I was Beheaded by Parliament as they took over England under the rule of Oliver Cromwell—not royalty but a military and political strategist who eventually tore up the constitution and became a dictator.

THE NAME

• 1642: The English Civil War

begins—Parliamentarians vs

Royalists

• 1649: Charles I is beheaded;

Oliver Cromwell takes power

• Charles I was son of James I

Samuel Pepys began his diary in

January 1660 (he was 26)(photo source: Wikipedia)

WHAT IS MEANT BY RESTORATION?

• In 1660 the Anglican Church was restored as the official Church of England and King Charles II was restored to power (after having been exiled to France, restoring the monarchy.)

• 1660: Charles II (son of Charles I) returns from exile in France and is crowned king, restoring the English monarchy• They dug up Cromwell, beheaded him, then reburied him.

• The monarchy was restored without shedding a drop of blood.

BIG QUESTIONS (AS POSED BY OUR TEXTBOOK)

• What can fix society’s problems?

• Satire and social criticism “castigated the aristocracy, educators, politicians,” etc.

• Can science tell us how to live?

• Many achievements during this period! The Age of Reason, Isaac Newton & the scientific method

• People apply scientific ideas to many areas of life, “using reason to decide, for instance, what form

of government would be best or how people ought to live their lives.”

• What topics are newsworthy?

• Journalism has new freedom, and as restrictions are lifted, daily newspapers appear

• Daily papers “moralized, mocked, and gossiped, giving their opinions on everything from social

manners to international politics.”

• What is a woman’s role in public?

• Women were still excluded from public discourse, but some begin to hold “salons, bringing

intellectual life into their own homes; others, through writing broke into the public sphere.”

THE PLAYERSElizabeth I James I

Charles I

Oliver Cromwell Charles II

DEFEATED AND EXHAUSTED

• By 1660 England was utterly exhausted by 20 years of civil war.

• By 1700 it had lived through a devastating plague and a fire that had left more than 2/3 of Londoners homeless.

NOT ENGLAND

• By the end of the 18th century, England had transformed itself.

• Some say they had nowhere to go but up.

• Why Augustan and Neoclassical? The comparison to Rome under the reign of emporer Octavian who called himself “Augustus” meaning “the exalted one.” He restored peace and order to Rome after Julius Caesar’s assassination.

• Again there was a return to classical learning and a restoration of order.

OCTAVIAN AND CHARLES II

THE AGE OF REASON AND ENLIGHTENMENT

• Asking the How? People were changing their ways of viewing themselves and the

world.

• Natural phenomena were increasingly explained by scientific observation as people

began to ask how things happened in the natural world.

BIRTH OF MODERN PROSE

• Under the influence of the Royal Society and John Dryden, English prose became

more precise, exact, and plain.

• Fewer metaphors, flowery language, etc.

CHANGES IN RELIGION

• The new science influenced religion: A movement called Deism viewed the universe as a perfect mechanism, which God had build and left to run on its own.

• Pope’s Essay on Man

• Sir Issac Newton

• John Locke

• Christianity but asking more and more scientific questions

RELIGION AND POLITICS

• Religion determined

people’s politics.

• King Charles II outlawed

and persecuted all the

various Puritan and

Independent sects—

dozens of them who all

disagreed among

themselves.

BLOODLESS REVOLUTION

• Charles II had no legal heir.

• When he died in 1685 he was succeeded by his brother

James II, a practicing Roman Catholic. Pressure was so great

that he fled to France with his family in 1688.

• James II was succeeded by his Protestant daughter Mary and

her Dutch husband William of Orange. Ever since, the rulers

of England have been, at least in name, Anglicans.

THE NEW PLAYERS

James IIWilliam and Mary

AFTER THE RESTORATION

• Writers drew on “New Classical” style of Roman, Greek, and Latin models

• Thinkers of this Age of Reason emphasized logic, scientific observation, factual explanation. These rational explanations affected some people’s religious views.

• Literary tastes turned to wit and satire to expose excesses and moral corruption.

AFTER THE RESTORATION

• In journalism, the periodical essay developed, commenting on

public manners and values.

• To satisfy the reading tastes of a developing middle class, writers

began to experiment with long fictional narratives called novels.

• Theaters closed by the Puritans reopened, and female actors

were now included on the stage; drama during the Restoration

period was witty, bawdy, and cynical.

AFTER THE RESTORATION

• By the end of the period, the excesses of the rich and the

onset of industrialization turned people’s tastes to an

appreciation for nature and simplicity.

• This leads into the Romantic Period (next unit!)

MAJOR IDEAS OF THE ERA

• Rationalism>>logical reasoning based on fact

• Cosmology>>new world view based on Newtonian physics>analysis of

natural phenomena as systems

• Secularism>>application of scientific theories to religion and society

• Scientific method>>experimentation, observation, hypothesis

• Optimism>>anything is possible

• Tolerance>>a greater acceptance of different societies and cultures

• Mass education

• Utilitarianism>>

• Cosmopolitanism

• Freedom

• Reform

WHAT ADJECTIVES WOULD YOU USE TO DESCRIBE THESE IMAGES?

THE AGE OF SATIRE

• Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift (of aristocratic values) both used satire to expose the moral corruption and crass commercialism of the eighteenth-century England.

• Artist William Hogarth shared many of their attitudes and ideas and expressed his satire through art.

• Daniel Defoe stood for values that we think of as middle class—no interest in polished manners and social poise.

THE SEVEN GROUPS OF ENGLISH SOCIETY DURING THIS TIME

1. The Great, who live profusely

2. The Rich, who live very plentifully

3. The Middle Sort, who live well

4. The Working Trades, who labor hard, but feel no want

5. The Country People, farmers, etc., who fare indefferently

6. The Poor, that fare hard

7. The Miserable, that really pinch and suffer want. ---Daniel Defoe

SATIRE

• Used to point out aspects of society that authors (especially

Neoclassicists) felt needed change

• Satirists are “guardians of culture” who “sought to protect their highly

developed civilization from corruption by attacking hypocrisy,

arrogance, greed, vanity, and stupidity.”

• Horatian Satire

• Named for the Roman writer Horace

• Gentle, playful, and sympathetic

• Juvenalian Satire

• Named for the Roman writer Juvenal

• Darker, biting, angry; criticizes corruption or incompetence with scorn/outrage.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SATIRE• Irony: A contrast between expectation and reality. This incongruity often has the

impact of surprising the reader or viewer. The techniques of irony often include

hyperbole, understatement, and sarcasm.

• Situational

• Verbal

• Dramatic

• Hyperbole: A figure of speech in which the truth is exaggerated for emphasis or for

humorous effect.

• Fictional Speaker: satirist distances himself from the subject by creating a speaker

(often calm and naïve) to address the topic without revealing the writer’s own

feelings

MOCK EPIC

• A. Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock”

• Lofty style

• Homeric Iliad and Odyssey

• Treats a trivial subject as if it were worthy

of an epic poem

• Uses heroic couplets

• Pair of rhymed lines in iambic

pentameter

http://neoclassical-poetry.bloomyebooks.com/2014/03/the-rape-of-lock-critical-

commentary.html

POPULAR TASTE

• Like journalists of the day, writers like Pope and Swift aimed

at reforming and educating their readers.

• Pope in particular, however, was much too formal and

classical in his style to draw a wide readership. These

readers instead flocked to the novel.

RHETORIC

• “Rhetoric is a technique of using language effectively and persuasively in

spoken or written form. It is an art of discourse, which studies and employs

various methods to convince, influence or please an audience”

(LiteraryDevices.net).

• Devices: See the AP glossary! Perspective, parody, aphorism, anaphora, foil,

irony, analogy, repetition, rhetorical question, etc.

• Appeals: • Logos—logical appeal. “Today, many people may discuss the logos qualities of a text to refer to how strong the

logic or reasoning of the text is. But logos more closely refers to the structure and content of the text itself”

(OWL).

• Ethos—ethical appeal “Today, many people may discuss ethos qualities of a text to refer to how well authors

portray themselves. But ethos more closely refers to an author’s perspective more generally” (OWL). Also, use

of experts to support a claim.

• Pathos—emotional appeal “Today, many people may discuss the pathos qualities of a text to refer to how well

an author appeals to an audience’s emotions” but can also mean audience’s perspective (OWL).

HOGARTH

THE AGE OF JOURNALISM

• As the middle class grew, journalists such as Defoe,

Joseph Addison, and Richard Steele followed this new

profession.

• Saw themselves as “reformers of public manners and

morals.”

THE AGE OF JOHNSON

• Samuel Johnson a commanding figure at the end of the 18th century, a man of conservative and traditional beliefs. He questioned optimistic assumption that the future would be better than the past and that people will automatically do what is right.

FIRST ENGLISH NOVELS

• Something new

• Development of the middle class

• Often broad and comical

• Robinson Crusoe, by Defoe

• Women were among the eager readers

• Tom Jones, Henry Fielding

PUBLIC POETRY

• Poetry of the period was not private, intimate, or

spontaneous; rather it was highly artificial and

carefully crafted for public occasions.

• Forms included: elegies for grand people, satire,

odes.