ENGL 23051 - The English Restoration

Course Credit: 1
Maximum Credit: 0

The English Restoration After two decades of religious and political upheaval in Britain, the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660 inaugurated an extraordinary era of literature. Some writers celebrated Charles II’s accession to the throne, while others mourned the failure of Oliver Cromwell’s republican government. Some embraced the libertine culture of the royal court; others lamented the apparent decline in national morality. No matter their convictions, however, Restoration writers were preoccupied with sex, gender, and power, and they expressed those preoccupations in vivid, forceful, and often satirical verse and prose. The Restoration was also a period of scientific and technological advancement, and the founding of the Royal Society established England as a center of experimental learning. This course will consider not only the plays, poems, and prose works of the Restoration period (c. 1660-1700), but also the historical context of that literature. Authors will include Aphra Behn, George Etherege, Thomas Hobbes, Andrew Marvell, and John Milton, among others. [Before 1800] [AH]