What was restored during the restoration

Satire was a highly successful literary tool that worked to promote social awareness through literature, the theater and periodicals of the time. For more details see Restoration Politics. Damrosch, Daivd, and Kevin J. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. United States: Pearson Education, Inc. Fielding, Henry. Joseph Andrews. United States: W. Theatre History. Skip to content King Charles II The King openly proclaimed his love of parliaments, his devotion to the immemorial constitution of balance and moderation, his Protestant fervor, and his pious hopes for a national church.

An Age of Satire Literature during this period was often considered a tool for the advancement of knowledge. Religious writing often strayed into political and economic writing, just as political and economic writing implied or directly addressed religion. The return of the stage-struck Charles II to power in was a major event in English theatre history. Traditionally, Restoration plays have been studied by genre rather than chronology, more or less as if they were all contemporary, but scholars today insist on the rapid evolvement of drama in the period and on the importance of social and political factors affecting it.

The influence of theatre company competition and playhouse economics is also acknowledged, as is the significance of the appearance of the first professional actresses. Skip to main content. Module The Restoration.

Search for:. When this did not happen, many thought that God himself was pleased with a restoration to the natural order of things. Find out more about Oliver Cromwell's death. Although the famous chronicler of the age Samuel Pepys had been a supporter of the Republic and an approving witness of the execution of Charles I, when he began his diary at the start of he was in the Royalist camp.

He was no prude, but was shocked and appalled by the debauchery the Restoration court. Over three consecutive years from , plague, fire and war struck London. Was the King too preoccupied with pleasure to govern his kingdom? Had the nation not been a little too eager to throw off its piety and embrace the ungodly? The honeymoon was certainly over for Charles II.

But it was also a time of great theatre, the first operas in Britain and a general flourishing of the arts. All of these were things Pepys loved.