Emotion Free Intellectual Literature in Restoration Period

From 1600 to 1700 these middle years are called Restoration years. At the end of the Common Wealth 1700 year was regarded the last restoration period. The urbanity, licentiousness were the court salient features of this period following the high puritan culture in the poetry. The theaters reappeared in public after a long ban on the theaters imposed by the puritans in 1642.

After the restoration’s revival there was a great change in the English people’s temperament. It was the sweeping reaction against the puritans’ court manners set by the Charles Second in his court. Infidelity and profligacy were prominent in the court at last they were turned into jest.

Even outside the narrow circle of court and aristocracy things were in the worst position and the spirit of corruption was spreading everywhere. That is why the literature of Dryden age was corrupt but there were many characteristics of this age. Real aim of life vanished and literature ceased to soar and became pedestrian.

But with the Restoration period we entered into intellectual literature rather than imaginative or emotional literature. But the fact is that the writers of Restoration period were the real creators of modern prose. They paid little attention to poetry and paid more attention to personal and political satire and poetry was a controversial thing in the age of Restoration.

It was the period in which intellect and critical faculty both were controlled and it produced modern prose with a new style neglecting the old laws of prose fixed before the Restoration period. It became modern in the age of Dryden. It is the greatest achievement of this age.

We can compare the writing of Milton’s writings and Dryden’s writings and Arnold’s writings and Steele’s writings, there is a great difference between their writings; the old prose is difficult and the modern prose easy to understand with short sentences with clear meanings. The old prose was full of punctuation at every step. The modern prose writers introduced lucidity and clarity in the modern prose.

There were many causes that converted the old prose into modern among which these spreading traits are common; the spread of common sense spirit, critical temper, the extending influence of science that supported clearness of thought and simple expression. All these changes appeared into English prose due to the influence of French literature.

France had already evolved such type of prose in which clearness, lucidity and suing simple words were supported for the common men’s expressions but the model prose

for the coming generation was introduced by Dryden and Bunyan.

Dryden’s Prose Works;

Dryden’s prose writings consist of essays and prefaces dealing poetry and plays. The Restoration was rising of the prose, but the real beginning of the modern prose and criticism started in the age of Dryden. The writers elected the rules of [prose and criticism after studying the old rules. In this respect Dryden was the first modern prose writer and the first modern critic of criticism. He discusses all aspects of criticism from the literary point of view and also he discusses the laws of plays and writing- techniques of modern plays in his essays. Along with it he also discusses heroic poetry and epic poetry in detail.

Dryden’s the work on criticism is in shape of The Essay of Dramatic Poesy, in which he discussed the principles of play writing. He wrote everything in short cut and limited but its historical importance is remarkable.

 

John Bunyan (1628-1688)

In the age of Dryden the famous prose writer, after the Restoration period, who continued to write prose, was John Bunyan. Due to several unlawful meetings he was jailed due to his literary autobiographical work, Grace Abounding. The first part of the Pilgrim’s Progress belonged to the second imprisonment of six months in 1675. There are four great works of Bunyan; Grace Abounding, the Pilgrim’s Progress, the Life and Death of Mr. Badman and the Holy War.

There are many things which make Bunyan great as his wonderful imagination gave him more respect in the age of Dryden. He wrote long prose allegory without any type of symbolism in which he described human story and maintained its central interest throughout the book.

These are other most important poets of romantic age and they played their role in Romantic Movement but got less fame in that era.  He was the only man who continued writing longer prose allegory without using symbolism throughout the book and maintained real human interest and wrote on common man story. He combined vividness and plainness in his writings.

Bunyan knows nothing about classic and English theories of literature and God had bestowed on him a typical style of writing that fascinated the readers. He used right words for real situation in his works.

Comparing Bunyan with Milton was Puritan and got education from Renaissance School while Bunyan was the child of Puritan. The Pilgrim Progress was the horrible production of the Puritan age it is more important than Milton’s Paradise Lost in

 

Puritan English literature

Bunyan’s Pilgrim progress was a great literary work due to its characters and dialogues and descriptive power. In the broader sense, it carries a  great dramatic power that debunks common men’s life incidents. Besides, it also carries the germs of modern novels.

The prose writers of the period are these who got less fame in that era; Sir. William Temple who was the best human due to having relationship with Swift, who wrote letters and essays in plain political style. The writer was John Tillotson, who leaving the pulpit prose and wrote new prose writing for modern readers and introduced a new religious style in prose. John Locke was the great prose writer who wrote in philosophical style. He wrote his famous book Essay on Human Understanding, it was a treatise on the government and his thoughts on education.

There were two writers who got fame in that age; Samuel Pepys and Evelyn who wrote in simple style but with a grave purpose for the readers.