Restoration Comedy

Comedy of Manners is a genre of English drama that was popular in the late 17th and early 18th
centuries. It is a type of satirical comedy that focuses on the manners, social conventions, and
behavior of the upper classes. The plays typically feature witty dialogue, intricate plots, and a
satirical treatment of the follies and foibles of high society.

The term "Comedy of Manners" comes from the French phrase "comédie de moeurs," which means
"comedy of manners or morals." The genre emerged during the Restoration period in England, when
Charles II was restored to the throne after the Puritan Commonwealth. The Restoration brought
with it a new era of frivolity and pleasure-seeking, as well as a renewed interest in the theater.

Comedy of Manners plays typically take place in fashionable settings such as London drawing
rooms,country estates, and coffee houses. They feature characters who are sophisticated, witty, and
fashionable, and who are preoccupied with social status, wealth, and romantic conquests. The plots
of the plays often involve romantic intrigues, mistaken identities, and clever schemes to gain
advantage ove rivals.

One of the most famous playwrights of the Comedy of Manners genre was William Congreve, whose
plays "The Way of the World" and "Love for Love" are considered classics of the genre. The
Restoration comedy is also known as Comedy of Manners. Fashionable intrigues, sex, marriage and
adultery were treated with cynicism, with worldly wit and a sense of the comedy of life.

Other playwrights were George Etheredge (The Man of Mode), George Farquhar (The Beaux’
Strategem), William Wycherley (The Country Wife) John Vanbrugh(The Provoked Wife) were the
comedy writers of that age.

Decline of Restoration Comedy of Manners

From 1700 a change began to be discernible in stage production. It was felt that the appeal of the
Restoration Comedy of Manners was restricted only to the aristocratic society. The immoral and
antisocial influence of these plays was clearly perceived and the voice of protest was also heard. It
was felt that a more human note was needed. With the rise of the middle class the moral standards
changed. Moreover, the periodical essay and newspapers which expressed the moral code of the
rising middle class emerged as powerful rivals of drama.Other notable playwrights of the genre
include George Etherege, William Wycherley, and John Vanbrugh.

The Comedy of Manners genre was known for its sophisticated dialogue and wordplay, which
oftenfeatured double entendres, puns, and innuendos. The plays were also known for their satirical
treatment of the social conventions and manners of the upper classes, and for their exploration of
themes such as love, marriage, and social ambition.

The genre fell out of favor in the 18th century as tastes in theater changed, but its influence can be
seen in later works such as the novels of Jane Austen, who also explored the manners and social
conventions of the upper classes with wit and satire. Today, the Comedy of Manners genre is still
celebrated for its cleverness, its exploration of the complexities of human relationships, and its
satirical treatment of the foibles and follies of high society.

The Comedy of Manners is characterized by a number of common features. These include:

1. Witty Dialogue: The plays feature sophisticated language as a tool to gain social advantage over
one another, and their wit is often used to mask their true feelings and intentions.

2. Focus on Social Conventions: The plays are preoccupied with the manners, customs, and social
conventions of the upper classes. The characters are obsessed with their social status, wealth, and
reputation, and their behavior is often governed by a strict code of social etiquette.

3. Intricate Plots: The plots of the plays are often highly intricate and involve romantic intrigues,
mistaken identities, and elaborate schemes to gain advantage over rivals. The characters are
constantly scheming and plotting against one another, and the action of the play often revolves
around the resolution of these plots.

4. Satirical Treatment of Upper Class: The plays are known for their satirical treatment of the upper
classes, and for their exploration of the foibles and follies of high society. The characters are often
portrayed as shallow, vain, and hypocritical, and the plays are designed to expose the absurdity of
their behavior.

Portrayal of the Rake and the Fop in Restoration Comedy

 The rake or libertine: A male character who is witty, charming, and sexually promiscuous,
often serving as the protagonist or anti-hero of the play (e.g., Dorimant in "The Man of
Mode")

 The fop: An overly fashionable and effeminate male character who is often the target of
ridicule and serves as a foil to the rake (e.g., Sir Fopling Flutter in "The Man of Mode")

Despite its focus on the manners and social conventions of the upper classes, the Comedy of
Manners genre was also known for its exploration of universal themes such as love, marriage, and
human relationships. The characters in the plays are often motivated by a desire for romantic
fulfillment or social advancement, and the plays explore the complex interplay of love, desire, and
ambition.

Today, the Comedy of Manners remains an important genre in the history of English drama, and its
influence can be seen in a wide range of works from the novels o Jane Austen to the modern
television series like Downton Abbey. Its clever dialogue, sophisticated wit, and satirical treatment of
high society continue to entertain and delight audiences around the world.

Novel in the 18th Century

In the era of neoclassicism, English writers emulated and were inspired by the classical writers of
the Roman Emperor Augustus’s reign—Horace, Livy, Ovid. A time of literary invention, it saw the
development of the English novel in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), the expansion of
satire with Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), and a focus on the ideals of order and
control.

The factors that led to the development of the Nove in the 18th century were as follows: expansion
of the reading public, growth of a new middle class, better position of women and economic
reasons. People, who were richer than before, could afford buying books and women had more time
for reading because, after the industrial revolution, they had much free time at home: they could
buy in shops the products which before were handmade in the houses. Publishing became a
profitable business thanks to the spread of literacy and of reading as a form of entertainment among
the wealthy middle class. The professional writers began to appear . They did not have rich patrons
but earned their living by writing essays and books. This new situation, together with the creation of
the circulating libraries which borrowed books in return of a small subscription fee, increased the
numbers of readers. Yet the number of those who could afford buying books was very small and
there was still widespread illiteracy. The masses gained a low salary and books were still very
expensive to buy. There was no real public education system yet. Poor children had little
opportunities to study since they were used as industrial labourers and a huge number of people
could neither read nor write.

The 18th century novel was labelled as realistic novel: the characters were real people with ordinary
names and surnames; they were described in their daily routines; the settings were real
geographical places and the contents were taken from real stories. Unlike the early Augustans, the
novelists liked to write about ordinary people acting in real-life situations. The novelists tried to
meet their middle-class readers who wanted to read about ordinary people because they enjoyed
seeing themselves as protagonists of the stories. They were the ones who bought the books and
consequently the authors’ point of view was the same as the readers’ one.

The most important novelists of the time were: Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Richardson,
Henry Fielding and Laurence Sterne. Some of them devoted themselves to writing because, as an
effect of the Test Act of 1673, being Roman Catholics or Dissenters, they were forbidden to hold any
important position in society and chose to become novelists or journalists.

DANIEL DE FOE is considered the pioneer of the modern novel and the first novelist in the English
literature as well as the first journalist (his The Review is considered the first newspaper). He
interpreted the likes and interests of the emerging middle class and depicted the 18th century
world. De Foe’s characters are common men and women with whom his middle-class readers could
identify themselves. All characters of his novel narrate their individual struggles for survival in a
difficult world, from Moll Flanders, a prostitute, thief and incestuous wife to Robinson Crusoe,
Colonel Jack, Captain Singleton and Roxana.

His novel The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner is
regarded as the first English novel. The novel is a true realistic novel: it is based on the real story of
a Scotch sailor, Alexander Selkirk, who had lived alone for four years on the Isle of Juan Fernandez in
the Pacific after a shipwreck. The story is told in the first person singular in the form of a diary.

Robinson Crusoe is the first narrative in which the character is not a hero, but an average man. De
Foe went on with the puritan ideas that had survived even after the collapsing of the Puritan
Republic of the Commonwealth. Robinson, a shipwrecked merchant who remained on a desert
island for about 28 years, is considered the true puritan man: he showed industry, colonizing spirit,
courage and initiative and was seen by the readers as the personification of their own qualities:
practical-minded, resourceful, religious. He organized his life on the island and succeeded through
hard labour in surviving in a difficult situation exploiting all what the place offered. Further , he not
only made the native man Friday to accept him as master but also made him use his language and
converted him to Christianity . Many critics charged this novel with being an imperialistic novel
because it contained an affirmation of capitalism and saw man as an economic animal. Robinson was
considered by those critics as the first capitalist hero in English literature, because he looked at
everything in economic terms: produced more than he needed, kept from the ship a lot of things,
expanded his power on the whole island and eventually became rich. They pointed out that when
Robinson managed to go on board the ship which had been carried within a reaching distance, he
also kept some money which, of course, was of no use on a desert island.

JONATHAN SWIFT was the greatest satirist of his age. Using irony and satire he tried to change his
own society and attacked it at all levels. Swift is remembered for his Gulliver’s Travels , a novel
that, like Robinson Crusoe, is nowadays regarded as a book for children and as an anticipation of the
modern fantasy novel. Actually the book was intended to be a bitter satire of his own country.. The
novel satirizes the follies and the vices of politicians and scholars and is a very serious comment on
politics, on learning and on all Mankind. It shows Swift’s bad opinion of people. He is very intolerant
of people in general and once he wrote to Pope: “ I heartily hate and detest that animal called man”.
He maintains that man is not a reasonable animal but an animal endowed with reason, which he is
not always able to use in the right way. Gulliver’s Travels tells the various imaginary voyages of
Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon on a ship, to various strange lands where he meets several man-like
creatures. The philosophical basis of the whole novel is in the contrast between rationality and
animality.

In the first book he is shipwrecked near Lilliput where he meets a race of tiny people, only six inches
tall, and he is a giant among them. Rationality is represented by the Lilliputians with their organized
society and their deep knowledge of mathematical science in contrast with Gulliver described as a
big body. In book 2, the situation is reversed: he is in Brobdingnag, the land of giants and he is a
dwarf among them. The giants embody animality while Gulliver rationality. In the third book he visits
the flying island of Laputa inhabited by scientists concerned with abstract ideas. He visits the
University of Lagado where he meets the “ projectors”, who work on new scientific odd plans:take
sunbeams out of cucumbers, melt ice into gunpowder, melt ice into gunpowder and so on.
They are presented in a decadent way: badly dressed, long hair and beard, very dirty, and even as
beggars. Animality is seen in the scientists while rationality is seen in man. In the last book he is in
the land of the Houyhnhnms , intelligent horses that can talk. They are perfectly rational and
virtuous. They have man-like slaves, the Yahoos, who are bestial, irrational and vicious. Gulliver
himself is seen by the Houyhnhnms as a Yahoo. In these various countries Gulliver explains to the
inhabitants about life in Europe and in particular in England. What Gulliver says is how things should
be , not how they are, and so his words become an ironical attack on what he is describing. In the
first book he attacks the English Government and the hypocrisies of the party system. Catholic
Religion is ironically attacked, too. Swift comments the dispute over whether an egg should be
broken, to be eaten, at the big end or at the little end: “ all true believers shall break their eggs at
the most convenient end”. In the second book he attacks the judicial and the political system in
Britain aiming at stressing the hypocrisy and corruption practised in the Institutions. In the third
book there is an attack on science and on members of the Royal Society while in the fourth and last
he attacks man. When he comes home after his rescue, he cannot accept the human race any
longer. The human beings appear to him like the Yahoos and he goes to live in a stable with the
company of horses.

Swift was not insensible to the sufferings of the Irish and he was indignant at their exploitation by
the British Government. The Irish lived on bad condition. He wrote and published a work in defence
of Ireland: Modest Proposal from Preventing the Children of poor people from being a burden to their
parents or the country. It was a new attack against the English. Using satire, he explained, that the
misery of the starving Irish could be easily relieved by selling their children to the rich as food. There
was also another benefit for the Irish: it should have solved the problem of overpopulation of
Ireland, too. It was of course a provocation but at the times some foreign readers took it as an actual
and serious one and there was quite a scandal

SAMUEL RICHARDSON: He is considered the inventor of the epistolary novel and the father of the
novel of sentimental analysis. He introduced psychological studies of the characters, especially
women. He started his career as a novelist quite late in his life when some booksellers asked him to
help the uneducated in their correspondence writing a sequence of letters dealing with everyday
subjects. He decided to make a novel from the letters, and wrote Pamela, or virtue Rewarded. He
chose an actual case he had heard of, in which a virtuous 15-year-old maidservant, who worked in a
rich household, had resisted her master’s advances.

The story is told through a series of letters from Pamela Andrews to her parents and their answers
to her. She asked for advice to defend herself from her master, Mr B, who wanted to seduce her
. Published in November 1740, the novel had an instant success and it was followed by a second
edition in February 1741, a third in March and even a fourth in May. As we can see, Pamela
originated from the realistic moral problem for many young girls who worked as maids: how to
resist the advances of their rich masters. Pamela celebrates the middle-class value of chastity before
marriage in opposition to the lasciviousness of the aristocracy. The theme of the persecuted maiden
attracted many readers. The readers divided into “Pamelists”, who were for Pamela, and “Anti-
Pamelists”, who criticized her. Pamelists maintained that she was a poor and simple girl who tried to
keep herself honest and chaste. Anti-Pamelists , instead, maintained that her behaviour was not
guided by purity but by utilitarianism: she was a cunning girl, who used her virtue to climb the social
ladder and she provoked her master to make him marry her. In the 18th century many people
thought that virginity was not a value for a poor girl to defend and that it was her duty as a servant
to please her master. Not all women considered chastity and honesty virtues to be defended. For
instance Moll Flanders, the heroine created by De Foe uses her beauty and her seductive charm to
improve the conditions of her miserable life. Pamela is considered the first best-seller in English
Literature. It had got a happy ending, she married Mr B., and it pleased the readers, women above
all, helping its success. Clarissa Harlowe, his second epistolary novel, is considered Richardson’s
masterpiece. It deals with a woman who tries to escape from a combined marriage to a man she
does not like. She finds refuge at a nobleman’s who seduces and rapes her. Clarissa refuses to marry
him and eventually lives as an outcast condemned by society.

Richardson’s success in his own age is mostly due to the subject matter of his novels, and to the
technique of narration he used. As far as the former, that is the theme of women who defend their
virtues from the advances of a powerful man, it appealed to a vast audience, above all women who
constituted the larger part of the reading public. The other element was the suspense created by
the technique that Richardson used. He himself defined it as “writing to the moment”. This
technique is a bit similar to the one used in modern soap operas: each letter dealing with the
present has got elements whose consequences will happen in the next letter thus letting the reader
wait.

HENRY FIELDING:. Fielding was different from De Foe and Richardson. He belonged to the
aristocracy and unlike them, he did not believe in sexual chastity above all other virtues. The
aristocracy regarded uninhibited sexuality with indulgence and considered other virtues as courage,
generosity and loyalty above it. His first novel, An Apology for the Life of Mrs Shamela Andrews is to
be considered as a reaction against the hypocrisy of the time as well as a reaction to
Richardson’s Pamela. Fielding wanted to ridicule the Puritan view of morality. The Shamela in the
title is a pun on the words of “shame” and Pamela. In his second novel, Joseph Andrews, he wanted
at first to parody Richardson’s Pamela but he put aside this idea and wrote a story based on the life
and adventures of Joseph, Pamela’s brother, and a friend of his. The situation is reversed and we
have a young man who works at a lady’s that wants to seduce him after her husband’s death.
Joseph, who is chaste and virtuous, refuses her advances.

Tom Jones ,his best novel, is a picture of the life of the lower and upper classes of the 18th century
society. Fielding depicts with humour and irony human weaknesses and stresses his tolerant attitude
towards them. Tom is an unheroic character and has all the limits of the ordinary man. Fielding’s
novels are considered picaresque in style, written in imitation of Cervantes (Picaresque novels come
from Spain and deal with the adventures of a rascal of low social class; they are usually humorous,
full of action and excitement).

LAURENCE STERNE: In his own time, Sterne was considered an anti-novelist because he did not
follow the canons of the realistic novel. He is the closest novelists to the modern ones of all
eighteenth century novelists. His novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman was
written in instalments in nine volumes between 1759 and 1767. It recalls the stream of
consciousness technique of Joyce and Woolf: it has no plot, no time scheme; it is full of the author’s
interventions, digressions, comments, asides, long quotations, and many unusual devices and
eccentric typographical characteristics as black pages (to mourn a friend’s death),marbled pages,
white pages, etc.

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Restoration Diarists (Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn)

Londoner Samuel Pepys (1633 – 1703) is the most famous proper diarist in the English language.
Those who appreciate a little of London history will know too his fellow practitioner and great
friend John Evelyn (1620 – 1706).

Pepys kept his diary for just 10 years until 1669 when he felt it was affecting his eyesight. Evelyn was
far more prodigious, noting down his daily thoughts from 1660 until his death in 1706. We find that
others – notably Robert Hooke – also enjoyed the pastime, a genre embraced with much enthusiasm
from the mid 17th century onwards. Unlike Pepys, Evelyn retrospectively updated and adjusted his
diaries over time, which may seem to us now to be a bit cheaty. Pepys, perhaps, didn’t see his daily
jottings as a legacy issue. How ironic.

The two men had much in common. They were both active members and supporters of the new
Royal Society; they were keen collectors of books; they had friends and acquaintances in common
such as Hooke, Boyle, Wren and others of that golden generation. In short they belonged to group of
men whom we might describe as curious gentlemen of affairs. That’s how they would have seen
themselves and how others saw them too, and not always approvingly.

But at the same time, they were very different. Pepys became a widower and had no children;
Evelyn had a successful and long marriage with many offspring (although most did not survive
childhood). Their attitude to women generally was entirely different. Pepys, though well-connected,
was not as wealthy as Evelyn and had to make his fortune through successful public service. Most
importantly, though, Pepys’s character was as earthy as Evelyn’s was high-minded. The former was
addicted to theatre, music and entertainment generally whereas his friend’s obsession was primarily
horticulture. Pepys experienced prison; Evelyn not. Evelyn’s world view was shaped by his
continental travels as a young man; Pepys lacked this benefit. And so on.

Looking through the prism of the interests and experiences of these two men, we can build a
detailed and fascinating picture what life was like for the educated elite in Restoration London. That
is idea underpinning this book. It is not really about Pepys and Evelyn so much as about their curious
world and hence the title.

The early chapters talk about the political and social environment inhabited by our protagonists. We
are introduced to their friends, their family and others who shaped their lives. It’s good to be
reminded of the origin of the word cabal and the genesis of Whigs and Tories.

As later chapters examine in further detail, this was a remarkable period of firsts. Formalised
scientific enquiry through the Royal Society; the introduction of tea, coffee and chocolate; the rise of
the coffee houses (it was interesting find out that coffee had taken hold in Oxford some good ten
years before London); the craze for imported foreign manufactures – furniture, linen, crockery, etc;
shopping malls!

These are wonderfully developed, but for me there are two stand-out chapters. The first – Chapter
6, Pleasure in All Things, is mainly about Pepys. It addresses the Restoration theatre of Kelligrew and
Davenant with appearances, of course, by Margaret Hughes (another first) and Nell Gwynn. Pepys’s
love of music introduces us to how that was written, performed, consumed and distributed at the
time.
The other is the book’s final chapter – The Affection Which We Have to Books – which brings us full
circle for both men: their love of books. This is one of the author’s specialities and it shines. Pepys’s
library (now at Magdalene College, Cambridge) numbered some 3,000 titles while Evelyn’s was even
larger at around 4,000 – both enormous by the standards of the day. Respectively, as you would
expect, they tell us much about their owners who assembled them, housed them and catalogued
them in distinctly different ways, also reflecting their personalities. The contemporary London book
trade – agents, vendors, booksellers, stationers, auctioneers – an enormous topic, here wonderfully
described. For me, this was one of the most fascinating sections of the book. One among many of a
history book richly illustrated with portraits, maps, engravings, landscapes, fabrics, toys, panoramas,
landscapes, furniture, etc.

Periodical Essay

A periodical essay is an essay (that is, a short work of nonfiction) published in a magazine or journal--
in particular, an essay that appears as part of a series.

The 18th century is considered the great age of the periodical essay in English. Notable periodical
essayists of the 18th century include Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Samuel Johnson, and Oliver
Goldsmith.

he Expanded Reading Public and the Rise of the Periodical Essay

"The largely middle-class readership did not require a university education to get through the
contents of periodicals and pamphlets written in a middle style and offering instruction to people
with rising social expectations. Early eighteenth-century publishers and editors recognized the
existence of such an audience and found the means for satisfying its taste. . . . [A] host of periodical
writers, Addison and Sir Richard Steele outstanding among them, shaped their styles and contents to
satisfy these readers' tastes and interests. Magazines--those medleys of borrowed and original
material and open-invitations to reader participation in publication--struck what modern critics
would term a distinctly middlebrow note in literature.
"The most pronounced features of the magazine were its brevity of individual items and the variety
of its contents. Consequently, the essay played a significant role in such periodicals, presenting
commentary on politics, religion, and social matters among its many topics."

Characteristics of the 18th-Century Periodical Essay

"The formal properties of the periodical essay were largely defined through the practice of Joseph
Addison and Steele in their two most widely read series, the "Tatler" (1709-1711) and the
"Spectator" (1711-1712; 1714). Many characteristics of these two papers--the fictitious nominal
proprietor, the group of fictitious contributors who offer advice and observations from their special
viewpoints, the miscellaneous and constantly changing fields of discourse, the use of
exemplary character sketches, letters to the editor from fictitious correspondents, and various other
typical features--existed before Addison and Steele set to work, but these two wrote with such
effectiveness and cultivated such attention in their readers that the writing in
the Tatler and Spectator served as the models for periodical writing in the next seven or eight
decades."
 Restoration Poetry

The Restoration is the period in English history between 1660 and 1689, beginning with the return of
Charles II to the throne. The poetry of this period is characterized by aspects of realism and reason,
with authors building upon the concept of the satire and modernizing the field of poetry through
their advancements. This period acts as a transition between the metaphysical poetry of an earlier
period and the Augustan poetry characteristic of the eighteenth century. The two most prominent
poets of the Restoration were John Milton (1608–1674) and John Dryden (1631–1700).

Milton had already established himself as the greatest lyrical poet of the later Renaissance with his
first collection of poetry, Poems of Mr. John Milton, Both English and Latin (1645). During the
Restoration, he composed what are commonly regarded as his three masterpieces: Paradise
Lost (first published in 1667 and revised in 1674), Paradise Regain’d (1671), and Samson
Agonistes (1671)—the former two being epic poems, while the latter is a dramatic one.

It is difficult to overestimate Milton’s greatness. Combining powerful moral tenor with a brilliant
profusion of poetical expression, as evidenced in the above three masterpieces especially, he
transformed the very character of subsequent English poetry.

An extreme Protestant and a staunch Republican, Milton was against the overall spirit of the
Restoration—with its demands for secularization, playful libertinage, and political intrigues.

In contrast, Dryden thoroughly belonged to his epoch. As a poet, he largely reflected the ideals of
equipoise, sense, and responsibility before society, which were particularly meaningful to the mores
of the Restoration.

Restoration literature’s reaction to the strict puritanical limitations of the former regime expressed
itself most vividly in amatory verse and pastoral dialogues by Charles Sedley; satires by Charles
Sackville, Earl of Dorset; parodies and epigrams by John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester; and
occasional verses, pamphlets, lampoons, and satires by George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham.
Poet and satirist Samuel Butler bitterly mocked puritanism in his long poem Hudibras.

Marked with the spirit of skepticism, Restoration poetry was equally opposed to both the creative
imagination of the Renaissance and Puritan rejection of earthly pleasures.

The main peculiarity of this epoch’s poetry is its pervasive employment of the heroic couplet. This
form was not new, as it had been used since Chaucer, but Dryden perfected it. The only novelty in
the use of form was the so-called pseudo-Pindaric, or irregular ode. It was introduced by Abraham
Cowley, who sought to imitate Pindar without copying the ode’s structure (strophe, antistrophe,
epode). Thus, each strophe had its own meter, which allowed greater irregularity in line length and
rhyming. Dryden used this form in his odes To the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady
Mrs. Anne Killigrew and Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Music.

Poetical inspiration during the Restoration usually entailed events of political life. Dryden wrote
poems about the war with Holland and the fire of London in the spirit of Virgil. Cowley lauded the
establishment of the Royal Society. Butler, however, derided this event in The Elephant in the
Moon. The peculiarity of Restoration satire was that its object was particular persons or political
parties rather than vice as a whole. For example, Dryden, in his Absalom and Achitophel, scorned
Whig leaders.

A great contribution of Restoration literature was poetical translation. Again, the most prominent in
this arena was Dryden. He translated Ovid, Theocritus, Lucretius, Horace, Juvenal, Persius, and
Homer, as well as Chaucer and Boccaccio. These translations were characterized by a loose
treatment of the original text and references to individuals and events of the contemporary epoch.

Poetry of John Dryden (Within Restoration Poetry)

1. He proves himself correct by synthesizing drama and poetry in two, incredibly different, but
equally successful plays. • Suggesting that effective drama CAN be poetry.

1. 1678-82: Satire • Dryden’s popularity earns him certain enemies within the literary
community. • He is attacked both verbally in the work of his contemporaries... • and
physically... With fists. • Dryden often responded to these petty, poetic attacks with a verse
or two of his own. • This is demonstrated most effectively in his satirical poem “Mac
Flecknoe.”

1. Mac Flecknoe • “Mac Flecknoe” is a direct attack on Thomas Shadwell: a man with whom
Dryden disagreed frequently. • Dryden uses a mock epic tone, with heroic elements to
glorify Shadwell, before revealing that his Heroic quality is “Dullness” and a severe lack of
wit. Come at me bro!

1. Mac Flecknoe – Excerpt Sh—— alone my perfect image bears, Mature in dullness from his
tender years.Sh—— alone, of all my Sons, is heWho stands confirm'd in full stupidity.The
rest to some faint meaning make pretence,But Sh—— never deviates into sense. Some
Beams of Wit on other souls may fall,Strike through and make a lucid interval;But Sh——'s
genuine night admits no ray,His rising Fogs prevail upon the Day. - Dryden, Flecknoe, 15-24.

1. 1678-82: Satire • Through his use of heroic couplets and hyperbole, Dryden presents
Shadwell as the epitome of stupidity. • This poem, is but one of his attempts at Satire; his
other notable satiric works include: • “Absalom and Achitophel” • “The Medal” • These
however, were employed, not against his own critics but, instead, to diminish the value of
Charles II’s political opponents – increasing his favour with the king.

1. 1682 – 88: Religiosity and Loss of Laureateship • Dryden continuously changes his own
beliefs to suit those of his monarch. • Before Charles’ death Dryden publishes his
“ReligioLaici:” a poem promoting Charles’ faith: Anglicanism. • when king James II assumes
the monarchy in 1685 Dryden dutifully converts to Catholocism, producing “the hind and the
Panther” and criticising his previous religion. • Dryden is caught out, however, by the abrupt
arrival of a Protestant monarch, William III; he is stripped of his Laureateship and replaced...
by Thomas Shadwell: the master of blandness.

1. 1682 – 88: Religiosity and Loss of Laureateship • Despite this downfall, however, Dryden’s
theological exploits influenced some of his best poetry. • “To the pious memory... of Mrs
Anne Killigrew” attests both to Dryden’s poetic skill and his depth of theological thought.

1. 1688 – 1700: Return To Drama and Translations • After losing his Laureate, Dryden, again,
focussed heavily on drama; • He produced in this period a number of plays in a variety of
genres, attesting to his continued skill and literary diversity. • In addition, he translated into
English many substantial works of classic and roman literature. • The most notable of these
was “The Works of Virgil” in 1697.

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