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 I

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

• Oliver Cromwell

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

• Tired of war and revolutionaries, after the death of Cromwell, the English people brought back the son of Charles I 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.

• 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.”

• Also, disasters were no longer considered punishment or warnings from God.

• Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England, endorsed looking at natural world through physical evidence, experiments, and hypotheses.

• 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.

• Charles II reestablished Anglican church as official church.

• He outlawed all Puritan and Independent sects.

• This persecution lasted through the 18th century.

• 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

English writers

modeled works on

old Latin classics,

which they had

studied in school

and university.

These writings that

imitate Latin works

were called

Neoclassical —

”new classical.”

• Because of his influence, the era in which Dryden lived is referred to as the “Age of Dryden.”

• Achievements in poetry include regulating meter and making diction precise. He is a master of explaining ideas.

• This set the standard for next 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.

• 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.

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.

• As the middle class grew, journalists and the reforms they advocated become important.

• Daniel Defoe stood for thrift, prudence, industry, and respectability.

• 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

• 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

• The commanding literary figure at the end of the 18th century was Dr. Samuel Johnson.

• He was conservative and traditional.

• He questioned whether the future would better than the past.

Samuel Johnson- “Age of Johnson”

• By 1784 there was now a search for a simpler life.

• The Industrial Revolution changed cities into filthy slums.

• This age of elegance, taste, philosophy, and reason was over.

• As industry grew, writers returned to nature and folk themes for inspiration.