The Restoration Period + Restoration Comedy and Early 18th Century

• The monarchy was restored in 1660 but no political settlement could be stable until religious issues had been resolved. 
• Under the reign of Charles II, the country was divided between two new political parties - the Tories, who supported the king, and the Whigs, the king's opponents. 
• Highly witty, playful and sexually-charged poetry had court sanction during the time of Charles II, who prided himself on his wit and worldliness and was a well-known philanderer. 
• At the same time, the prose literature of dissent, political theory and economics also increased during his reign, as Charles II preferred to subversively instead of overtly persecute Puritans (e.g. keep them from public office). 
• Poetry was an important literary form during the Restoration. English poets tried to create a national epic similar to France's "Song of Roland". 
• One of the characteristics of Restoration period poetry is its devaluation of individual sentiment and psychology in favor of public utterance and philosophy.
• Rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter was the most popular structure for all types of poetry. 
• Iambic tetrameter couplets with unusual or unexpected rhymes became known as "Hudibrastic verse." It was a formal parody of heroic verse and primarily used for satire, and it would be used by Jonathan Swift almost exclusively for his poetry.
• The most important form of incunabula of the era was satire, which was normally published anonymously. 
• Neither Tories nor Whigs proved successful with the Catholic James II, who came to the throne in 1685. 
• He was soon replaced during the "Glorious Revolution" in 1688 by the Dutchman William of Orange, a champion of Protestantism and the husband of James's Protestant daughter Mary.
• In the 18th century, the Whigs generally stood for the new "moneyed interest", while the Tories stood for tradition, affirming landonwership as the proper basis of wealth, power and privilege.
• The reign of George III (1760-1820) saw the emergence of Britain as a colonial power and the cry for a new social order based on liberty and radical reform, as the wealth brought to England by industrialism and foreign trade had not spread to the great masses. 
• Publishing boomed in 18th century Britain, in part because of the loosening of legal restraints on printing, and also the rise in literacy. 
• The literature appearing between 1660 and 1785 can be divided into three lesser periods of about 40 years each:
• The first, extending to the death of Dryden in 1700, is characterized by an effort to bring a new refinement to English literature according to sound critical principles of what is fine and right. Poetry and prose came to be characterized by an easy sociable style, while in the theater comedy was triumphant.
• The second period, ending with the deaths of Pope in 1744 and Swift in 1745, reaches out to a wider circle of readers with special satirical attention to what is unfitting and wrong. The finest works of this period viewed modern times through the screen of classical myths and forms.
• The third period, concluding with the death of Johnson in 1784 and the publication of Cowper's The Task in 1785, confronts the old principles with revolutionary ideas such as a respect for the good judgment of the ordinary people, and for standards of taste and behavior independent of social status. 

Restoration Comedy

• comedies of language and manners
• almost always centered on the tension between accepted social codes of behavior toward sex and marriage
• also focus on human lust and social ambition
• plays typically open with verse prologue to the audience which provide excellent introduction to the kind of cynical, punning, innuendo-laden language in the play
• character's name will typically reflect that character's outstanding foibles
• "war between the sexes" is a frequent motif