Early life[ edit ] Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire, where his maternal grandfather was rector of All Saints. He was the eldest of fourteen children born to Erasmus Dryden and wife Mary Pickering, paternal grandson of Sir Erasmus Dryden, 1st Barone t —and wife Frances Wilkes, Puritan landowning gentry who supported the Puritan cause and Parliament. He was a second cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift.
Similarly, some of the poets who published with the Restoration produced their poetry during the Interregnum.
The official break in literary culture caused by censorship and radically moralist standards effectively created a gap in literary tradition. Drama had developed the late Elizabethan theatre traditions and had begun to mount increasingly topical and political plays for example, the drama of Thomas Middleton.
The Interregnum put a stop, or at least a caesurato these lines of influence and allowed a seemingly fresh start for all forms of literature after the Restoration.
The last years of the Interregnum were turbulent, as were the last years of the Restoration period, and those who did not go into exile were called upon to change their religious beliefs more than once.
With each religious preference came a different sort of literature, both in prose and poetry the theatres were closed during the Interregnum. When Cromwell died and his son, Richard Cromwellthreatened to become Lord Protectorpoliticians and public figures scrambled to show themselves as allies or enemies of the new regime.
Printed literature was dominated by odes in poetry, and religious writing in prose. The industry of religious tract writing, despite official efforts, did not reduce its output. Figures such as the founder of the Society of FriendsGeorge Foxwere jailed by the Cromwellian authorities and published at their own peril.
During the Interregnum, the royalist forces attached to the court of Charles I went into exile with the twenty-year-old Charles II and conducted a brisk business in intelligence and fund-raising for an eventual return to England.
Some of the royalist ladies installed themselves in convents in Holland and France that offered safe haven for indigent and travelling nobles and allies.
The men similarly stationed themselves in Holland and France, with the court-in-exile being established in The Hague before setting up more permanently in Paris. As Holland and France in the 17th century were little alike, so the influences picked up by courtiers in exile and the travellers who sent intelligence and money to them were not monolithic.
Charles spent his time attending plays in France, and he developed a taste for Spanish plays. Those nobles living in Holland began to learn about mercantile exchange as well as the tolerant, rationalist prose debates that circulated in that officially tolerant nation.
John Bramhallfor example, had been a strongly high church theologianand yet, in exile, he debated willingly with Thomas Hobbes and came into the Restored church as tolerant in practice as he was severe in argument. Charles II When Charles II became king inthe sense of novelty in literature was tempered by a sense of suddenly participating in European literature in a way that England had not before.
Additionally, the position of Poet Laureate was recreated, complete with payment by a barrel of "sack" Spanish white wineand the requirement for birthday odes. He was well known as a philanderer as well. Highly witty, playful, and sexually wise poetry thus had court sanction.
Charles and his brother Jamesthe Duke of York and future King of England, also sponsored mathematics and natural philosophyand so spirited scepticism and investigation into nature were favoured by the court.
Charles II sponsored the Royal Societywhich courtiers were eager to join for example, the noted diarist Samuel Pepys was a memberjust as Royal Society members moved in court. Charles and his court had also learned the lessons of exile.May 24, · THE MOST REMARKABLE LITERARY FIGURE OF RESTORATION PERIOD: JOHN DRYDEN.
literary figure. The range of Dryden’s works is, indeed, truly remarkable. There is perhaps, no popular branch of his age that Dryden has not treated effectively and left distinct impressions. just as every epic hero has a defining characteristic.
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.
John Dryden's mock epic poem Mac Flecknoe is a great example of Restoration satire. Political themes are a big part of John Dryden's writing.
His poem "To His Sacred Majesty: A Panegyrick on His Coronation" deals with the restoration of Charles II to the throne. THE RESTORATION PERIOD AND THE 18TH CENTURY-Age of Dryden,Age of Pope,Age of Johnson referat THE RESTORATION PERIOD AND THE 18TH CENTURY This period extends from , the year Charles II was .
Although Dryden's reputation is greater today, contemporaries saw the s and s as the age of courtier poets in general, and Edmund Waller was as praised as any. Dryden, Rochester, Buckingham, and Dorset dominated verse, and all were attached to the court of Charles. THE RESTORATION AGE () The period from to is known as the Restoration period or the Age of Dryden because monarchy was restored in England.
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