Restoration

Restoration, the re-establishment of monarchy in England, with the return of Charles II (1660); also the period marked by this event of which the chief literary figures are Dryden, Rochester, Bunyan, Pepys, Locke, and the Restoration dramatists. One of the characteristic genres of the period is Restoration comedy, or the comedy of manners, which developed upon the re-opening of the theatres. Its principal writers were Congreve, Etherege, Farquhar, Vanbrugh, and Wycherley, and its predominant tone was witty, bawdy, cynical, and amoral. The plays were mainly in prose, with passages of verse for the more romantic moments; the plots were complex and usually double, sometimes triple, though repartee and discussions of marital behaviour provide much of the interest, reflecting the fashionable manners of the day. The playwrights came under heavy attack for frivolity, blasphemy, and immorality (see Collier, Jeremy): they and their subsequent admirers defended their works as serious social criticism, and mirrors to the age. During the 18th cent. the plays were presented in more ‘genteel’ versions, and in the 19th cent. hardly at all: the 20th cent. saw a considerable revival of interest, with such notable productions as The Way of the World, one of the masterpieces of the period, in 1924 with Edith Evans as Millamant. (See also heroic drama and comedy.)