After the Restoration in 1660, when Charles II came to the throne, there
was a complete repudiation of the Puritan ideals and way of living. In English
literature the period from 1660 to 1700 is called the period of Restoration,
because monarchy was restored in England, and Charles II, the son of
Charles I who had been defeated and beheaded, came back to England from
his exile in France and became the King.
It is called the Age of Dryden, because Dryden was the
dominating and most representative literary figure of the Age. As the Puritans
who were previously controlling the country, and were supervising her literary
and moral and social standards, were finally defeated, a reaction was launched
against whatever they held sacred. All restraints and discipline were thrown to
the winds, and a wave of licentiousness and frivolity swept the country.
Charles II and his followers who had enjoyed a gay life in France during their exile, did their best to introduce
that type of foppery and looseness in England also.
They renounced old ideals and demanded that English poetry and drama should
follow the style to which they had become accustomed in the gaiety of Paris. Instead of having Shakespeare and the Elizabethans
as their models, the poets and dramatists of the Restoration period began to
imitate French writers and especially their vices.
