There are three historical events which influenced the life

& literature of the age of Dryden.

(1) The restoration of Charles II to the English throne

in 1660.
(2) The religious & political controversies and Popish
Plot.
(3) The Golden Revolution of the year 1688.
The Restoration of Charles II brought revolution
in English literature.
The Puritan regime of Oliver Cromwell had
been too severe.
It had suppressed too many natural pleasures.
Now, released from restraint, society abandoned
the decencies of life and reverence for low itself,
and plunged into excesses more unnatural than
had been the restrains of Puritanism.
It seems as if “England lay sick of a fever”. The king was a
thorough rake ( man who lives immoral life) had a number
of mistresses and numerous illegitimate children.

This immorality and levity (humorous attitude) of the age

is reflected in its literature, specially in the Drama.

The plays of Dryden, the most representative poet of the

period, reflect this immorality and coarseness of life in an
ample measure.
Of the king and his followers it is difficult to write
temperately. (Self restraintly).
Most of the dramatic literature of the time is atrocious
(terrible) and we can understand it only as we remember
the character of the court & society for which it was
written. Unspeakably (terribly) vile( extremely disgusting)
in his private life, the king had no positive patriotism, no
sense of responsibility to his country for even his public
acts.He gave high offices to blackguards(rascal, scoundrel)
stole from the exchequer (country’s or person’s supply of
money) like a common thief, played off Catholics and
Protestants against each other, disregarding his pledges (
Solemn promise) to both similar, broke his solemn treaty
with Dutch & with his own ministers, and betrayed his
country for French money to spend on his own pleasures.
The great Plague & Fire that followed were popularly
regarded as suitable punishments for the sins of profligate
& selfish king. Practically the whole London was burnt and
countless died of plague, thousands fled from London to
countryside.
While London was burning and the people were suffering,
the king and his nobles kept up their celebrations. They
roamed the streets abducting and seducing the women of
peace loving citizens.
Another important feature of the era is the bitterness of
political & religious passions. The age witnessed the rise of
the two political parties, The Whigs & The Tories.

The Whigs who sought to limit the royal power in the

interests of the people and the parliament.

The Tories, who supported the ‘Divine Right’ theory of king

The religious controversies were even more bitter. The
supporters of Puritans were persecuted (victimized). The
nation was predominantly Protestant, and the Catholics
labored under a number of disabilities. They were
suspected, had to pay taxes, and were not allowed to hold
any office under the Clown. This intense hatred for the
Catholics colors all the writings of the time.
The religion of the king himself was suspected, and his
brother James was declared a Papist a roam Catholic. As
Charles II had no legitimate child and heir, it was certain
that his brother James, a Catholic, would succeed to the
throne.
Therefore the attempts were made to exclude him from the
throne and to replace him by the Duke of Monmouth, the
favorite, though illegitimate, son of Charles II. This
controversy directly led to the so called Popish Plot sworn
to Titus Oates.
James II ascended to the throne in 1685. By various
intrigues and underhand means he tried to establish
Catholism in the country. By his misrule he made himself
entirely unpopular within four years. The nation as a whole
rose against him.
The bloodless Revolution of 1688, which called the
Protestant William and Mary of Orange to the throne,
indicates that the country was restored once again to health
and sanity after the fever of immorality and corruption
from which it had suffered since the Restoration's.
In the literature of the Restoration we note a sudden
breaking away from old standards, just as society broke
away from the restrains of Puritanism.
Many literary men had been driven out of England with
Charles and his court.
On their return they renounced old ideals and demanded
that English poetry & drama should follow the style to
which they had become accustomed in the gayety of Paris.
We read with astonishment in Peppy’s Diary (1660 – 1669)
that he has been o see a play called Midsummer Night’s
Dream, but that he will never go again to hear
Shakespeare, ‘for it is the most insipid (dull, unexciting)
ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life”.
Since Shakespeare and the Elizabethans
were no longer interesting, literary men
began to imitate the French writers, with
whose works they had just grown familiar;
and here begins so – called period of French
influence.
One has only to consider for a moment the
French writers of this period, Pascal,
Bossuet, Fenelon, Malherbe, Corneille,
Racine, Moliere – all that brilliant
company which makes the reign of Louis
14th the Elizabethan age of French
literature,- to see how far astray (away
from the proper path) the early writers of
the Restoration went in their wretched
imitation.
When a man take another for his model,
he should copy virtues not vices; but
unfortunately many English writers
reversed the rule, copying the vices of
French comedy without any of its wit or
delicacy .
The poems of Rochester, the plays of
Dryden, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh,
and Farquhar, all popular in their days, are
mostly unreadable.
Milton’s “Songs of Belial, flown with
insolence (rudeness) and wine”, is a good
expression of the vile (arrogant) character
of the court writers and of the London
theaters for thirty years following the
Restoration.
Such work can never satisfy a people, when
Jeremy Collier, in 1698 published a vigorous
attack upon the evil plays and the playwrights
of the day, all London, tired of the coarseness
and excesses of the Restoration, joined the
literary revolution, and the corrupt drama was
driven from the stage.
With the final rejection of the Restoration
drama we reach a crisis in the history of
our literature. The old Elizabethan spirit,
with its patriotism, its creative vigor, its
love of romance, and the Puritan spirit
with its moral earnestness and
individualism, were both things of the
past; and at first there was nothing to take
their places.
Dryden, the greatest writer of the age, voiced a
general complaint when he said that in his
prose and poetry he was “drawing the outlines”
of a new art, but had no teacher to instruct
him.
But literature is a progressive art, and soon the
writers of the age developed two marked
tendencies of their own,- The tendency to
Realism, and the Tendency to that preciseness
& elegance of expression which marks our
literature for the next hundred years. Second
tendency is Formalism.
In realism – that is, the representation of
men exactly as they are, the expression of
the plain, unvarnished (factual, exact)
truth without regard to ideals or romance –
the tendency was at first thoroughly bad.
The early Restoration writers sought to
paint realistic pictures of a corrupt court
and society, and as we have suggested, they
emphasized vices, rather than virtues, and
gave us coarse, low plays without interest
or moral significance.
Like Hobbes, they saw only the externals of
man, his body and appetites, ( desire for
food) not his soul and its ideals; and so,
like most realities, they resemble a man
lost in the woods, who wanders aimlessly
around in circles, seeing the confusing
trees but never the whole forest, and who
seldom thinks of climbing the nearest high
hill to get his bearings.
The second tendency of the age was
towards directness and simplicity of
expression, and to this excellent our
literature is greatly indebted. In both the
Elizabethan and the Puritan ages the
general tendency of writer was towards
extravagance of thought and language.
Sentences were often involved, and loaded
with Latin quotations and classical
allusions.
The Restoration writers opposed this vigorously. From France
they brought back the tendency to regard rather than
romantic fancy, and to use short, clean cut sentences without
an unnecessary word. We see this French influence in the
Royal Society which had for one of its objects the reform of
English prose by getting rid of its “swelling of style”, and
which bound all its members to use “a close, naked, natural
way of speaking ……. As near to mathematical plainness as
they can”. Dryden accepted this excellent rule for his prose,
and adopted the heroic couplet, as the next best thing, for the
greater part of his poetry. As he tells us himself,

And this unpolished rugged verse I chose

As fittest for discourse, and nearest prose.
Another thing which the reader will note
with interest in Restoration literature is
the adoption of the heroic couplet; that is
two iambic pentameter lines which rime
together, as the most suitable form of
poetry.
Waller who began to use it in 1623, is
generally regarded as the father of the
couplet, for he is the first poet to use it
consistently in the bulk of his poetry.
These four things, the tendency to vulgar
realism in the drama, a general formalism
which came from following set rules, the
development of a simpler and more direct
prose style, and the prevalence of the heroic
couplet in poetry are the main characteristics
of Restoration Literature. They are all
exemplified (demonstrate) in the work of one
man, John Dryden.