Restoration & 18th Century

1660-1785
Based on Norton Anthology of
English Lit 8th edition

Religion and Politics

Return of Charles II (Stuart) after

Interregnum of Cromwell family, during
which country run by puritans or dissenters
Anglican bishops were not tolerant of dissent
Test ACT required all who attend university,
and all holders of civil and military office, to
take sacrament and deny belief in
transubstantiation
Widespread anti-catholic sentiment; blamed
for fire of London and fictional popish plot

Ousting of Stuarts

James II, a Catholic, did not hide his sympathies

like his father had. Ousted
Dutchman William of Orange and his wife, James
protestant daughter Mary, come to London and
James flees to France: Bloodless Revolution
His supporters, called Jacobites, persisted,
especially in Scotland, until final unsuccessful
uprising of Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745
Succession settled on German Sophia, Electress of
Hanover and her descendents (granddaughter of
James I

Englands New Wealth

War of Spanish Succession in 1702

weakened Englands commercial
rivals; England gained new colonies
and contracts to supply slaves to
Spain.
New wealth created tensions between
old and new money

Whigs and Tories

These aristocratic parties fight for

ascendancy throughout period.
Whigs, like Petroleum conservatives,
tolerated dissenters; supported new
moneyed interests (bankers, etc.);
centralized government
Tories, like Bible belt conservatives,
supported monarchy, established church,
affirmed land ownership as proper basis of
wealth, suspicious of centralized government
that rewarded followers with wealth

Emergency of Empire

First prime ministers (Walpole and Pitt)

expand British power and commerce
overseas
Britain becomes colonial power, ruling
Canada and India, though they lose
American colonies.
Slave trade enriches nation; opposition to
slavery widespread by both Anglicans and
Methodists

Discontent: The rich get richer

Great wealth does not spread to poor;

women remain disenfranchised
1780 London riots turn the poor (Catholic
and Protestant) against each other
Popular king George has 60-year rule, but
inherited madness increasingly mars rule
Fear of radicals who call for new democracy
contributes to British reaction against
French revolution

Context of Ideas: Contrast &

Compromise

Holdovers of revolution: Pilgrims Progress

and Paradise Lost express the conscience of
dissenters
Contrast with court, in which Charles II and
his followers aggressively celebrated
pleasure and considered Londons wives
and daughters fair game
Compromise brewing among intellectuals;
suspicions of all excess

Suspicion of Dogmatism &

Enthusiasm

All anxious to avoid strife of 1640-60

All dogma unpopular: puritan enthusiasm,
papal infallibility, divine right of kings,
modern Cartesian philosophy
Pursuit of absolute certainty is vain, mad,
and socially calamitous.
For religious people and cynics, faith can
take up where reason and sensory evidence
fails

Distrust of received knowledge

New theories: Hobbes supports absolute

government because of scientific theory of
matter in motion: human desire for power
leads to state of war
Atomic theory
Advancement of empirical study by careful,
systematic observation is the great
contribution of 18th c. England to the world

Sciencestill a lay activity

Natural history (collection & description of

natural facts) & Natural philosophy (study of
those facts)
Microscope and telescope expand complexity
of universe
Aphra Behn translates Fontenelles
Conversation on the Plurality of Worlds
suggestng alternate universes
Exploration and colonization increase apetite
for wondrous facts about new flora and
fawna

Science, contd

Discovery of electricity led to

fashionable experiments with
electrocution
Matthew Boulton creates first factories
powered by steam engines
Chemistry allowed new market by
Wedgewood in domestic porcelain

Deism or Natural Religion

Newtons discoveries suggest universal order in

creation created by God like watchmaker and
watch
Encounter with other non-Christian peoples led to
universal religious tenets that could be embraced
by rational beings
Deism: Reason recognizes goodness and wisdom
of God and natural law; no need for mystery or bible
Deisms God winds world like a watch and then
withdraws. American Founders like Ben Franklin
embraced Deism, which seemed like a better
foundation for new nation than religious division

Empiricism:

Berkeley: we know the world only through our

senses; we cannot prove that material things
exist; reliance on faith
Hume: causes and effects are discernable by
experience, not reason
Locke examines limits of human
understanding to help us avoid meddling in
things that exceed our comprehension
Swift & Pope warn against metaphysics,
abstract logic, theoretical science. Pope:
Presume not God to scan.

Feminism

Mary Astell argued for womens

educational institutions and decried
marital tyranny; mocks Lockes
insistence on political rights for men
only.
Richard Steele and others advocates
improvement in womens education
and sociability.

New Religion

Methodismevangelical sect
promoted by John Wesley et al,
preached salvation through faith, not
works (unlike Anglicans)
New emphasis on individual and
personal God: diary keeping, letter
writing, and novel all testify to
importance of private, individual life

Conditions of Literary
Production

Government licensing relaxed and replaced

by laws against sedition, libel, obscenity,
and treason
Stage licensing remained; all but two royal
theatres closed down
Copyright vested with publishers and
authors begin to profit by subscription; Pope
earns 5000 pounds for Iliad translation
Stamp acts allowed taxation of newspapers;
put some out of business but others thrived

New professional writing class

Grub St in where poorer writers lived

Market also appealed to literary elite; few
now wrote except for pay
Subscription allowed new wealth but also
helped womens writing, which otherwise
had trouble finding publishers
Mostly wealthy or middle class, but some
poor authors made it into print, e.g. Mary
Colliers The Womans Labor

Education of Women

Increase in literacy (male literacy as much as 75%

by end of period, perhaps 25% for women; literacy
mostly urban and surrounded the bible)
Women were barred from universities; all were selfeducated
Aristocratic women published widely, especially
poems
Some scandalous writers of popular stories of sex,
satire, seduction were denounced by men as
immoral Popes Dunciad depicts pissing contest of
scurrilous male booksellers won by Eliza
Haywood
Bluestockings: intellectual women who favored
moral literature, esp novels about young women
approaching marriage

Cost of reading

Books were still too expensive for laborers,

as were lending libraries
Poor sometimes taught to read as a
religious activity by aristocratic masters
Patrons interested in letters, travel literature,
and novels
Change of printing: capitalization reserved
for proper names instead of nouns; fewer
italics for emphasis suggests more
sophisticated reading public

Literary Principles: New

emphasis on Clarity

Elegant simplicity and restraint;

rejection of Donnes metaphysics and
Miltons large themes
Neoclassical or Augustan period
involved classical revival with English
themes
Drydens interest in literature for moral
instruction

Nature

New interest in natureexternal nature of

landscapes; human natures enduring,
universal truths
Study of the ancients seemed synonymous
with study of nature: combine method with
with, and judgment with fancy
Restraint: The winged courser, like a
generous horse, Shows most true mettle
when you check his course.

Mannered language; readable

verse

Style dominated by personification,

periphrasis, latinate words, and words forced
into Latin syntax
Heroic Couplet (rhymed iambic pentameter
AA BB) inherited from Ben Jonson;
elaborately stylized, but short sentences. For
witty, moralizing verse
Blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter)
favored for meditative poems

Restoration Literature 16601700

Dryden dominated; lit combined latest

European trends with English topics; made
Ovid and Virgil accessible through
translation
Royal society asked for prose to be plain
and utilitarian; contrast with elaborate style
of Miltons pamphlets and Donnes sermons
Aristocratic, heroic subjects
Restoration drama favored comedies of
manners featuring pleasure-seeking males
who prey on beautiful, witty, emancipated
women

18th Century lit 1700-1745

Great age of satire: wit turned against fanaticism

and innovation; mock epics by Pope, Swift, Gay.
New prose genres: allegories, biographies of
notorious criminals, travelogues, gossip, romance
often fictonalized, Defoes Robinson Crusoe and
Behns Oronooko
Sentimental drama rejected immoral comedies;
featured characters choosing between love and
honor
Poems about sublime beauties of nature and low
subjects prefigure romantic age

New Modes 1740-1845

Prose modes: novels more popular than poems for

first time. Essays, literary criticism, biography,
philosphy, politics, history, aesthetics, economics
(Adam Smith)
Memoirs of women created celebrities who let
readers into private lives
Epistolary novels and satires; gothic novels;
experimental fiction influenced by Cervantes in
Spain; Laurence Sternes Tristram Shandy
First dictionaries
Poems were melancholy and lamented loss of
poetic age; primitives like Ossian were popular