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RESTORATION: (1660-1700)
I. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
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1660: restoration of Charles II
1665: plague, 70,000 dead in London
1666: Great London Fire, 9/2/66, 4-5 days, 13k houses, 2/3 = homeless, blamed on Catholics, last of the
plague
1666 ("Annus Mirabilis": title of a John Dryden poem about the events of 1666. Annus Mirabilis =
"wonderful year" or "year of miracles". 1666 = “year of wonders” because the “Great London Fire” did not
have a greater death-toll (only 16 people) = miraculous intervention by God, as "666" is the Number of the
Beast and the year 1666 was expected by some to be particularly disastrous. Also, in 1666: the English fleet
defeated a Dutch fleet. Also, 1666: Isaac Newton made revolutionary inventions and discoveries in
calculus, motion, optics and gravitation. He observed an apple falling from a tree, and hit upon gravitation
(Newton's apple). He was afforded the time to work on his theories due to the closure of Cambridge
University by an outbreak of plague. Going to his country home, he thought about many things that, in
Cambridge, he did not have the opportunity to do with such devotion.
1688-89: Glorious Revolution, “bloodless,” depose Catholic James II, accession of William of Orange
1700: John Dryden is dead
(*end of Restoration Period*)
 1707: Act of Union: “Great Britain,” Scotland & Britain are unified
 1714: George I, House of Hanover
 1744-45: Pope & Swift are dead
 1776: American Revolution
 1784: Samuel Johnson is dead
 1789: French Revolution
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------II. EMPIRE BUILDING: Stabilized Government (strengthened without & within)
1659: Richard Cromwell abdicates; Charles II is expectedorder, peace, mildness, freedom under law
1660: restoration of Charles II
1665 & 1666:
(1) Bubonic Plague (unusually warm spring & summer, @ 17k of 93k dead, @ 15% of London’s population)
(2) Great London Fire (Sunday, 9/2/66, Thomas Farynor--Pudding Lane, Charles II’s baker--5 days, 400+ acres,
13K+ houses, 87 churches, 6 deaths)
 superstition: plague = divine Providence, outrage at rebellion & regicide
 prejudice: fire = blamed on Catholics
 quarantine; mass graves = Aldgate’s Great Pit and the pit at Finsbury Fields
 (+) rebuilt & reorganized city (destruction of medieval London) (Sir Christopher Wren)
 (+) no more major plague outbreaks (fire killed off fleas & rats carrying plague bacillus)
1680: Royal Navy defeats Holland (England’s chief maritime & commercial rival)
1689-1763: wars with France  acquired dominions around the world (Canada & India)
1688 & 1707: Glorious Revolution & Act of Union
 GR established rule of law, AU established political alliance
 unity, allegiance, “nation”
 “British” writers (regardless of country)
o Swift, Burke, Sheridan, Goldsmith (Ireland)
o Thompson, Boswell, Hume (Scotland)
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------III. RESTORATION: via the MONARCHS
CHARLES II
1640s & 1650s:
 liberalism (theological & political heterodoxy)
 English Civil Wars, Puritan & Parliamentary forces (Interregnum)
 millennial hope
1660:
 restoration of Charles II (Stuart)
 censorship (see conservatism: religious, political, literary)
  satire (anonymous, Andrew Marvell, A. Pope)
 RELIGIOUS literature (different religions, but conservative tone)
 HISTORICAL Literature: (of the Civil War period)
 conservatism (religious, political, literary) *not Charles’ libertine court
 Charles = amorous, pleasure-seeking
 rakes, mistresses at court
 BUT Charles = PATRON of the arts & sciences
o CHEMISTRY, SCIENCE:
 chartered Royal Society of London for the Improving of Natural Knowledge (1662)
 physics, astronomy, chemistry
o MUSIC, PAINTING:
 imported from the Continent composers, musicians, new instruments, Fr. & Ital. operas
o THEATER:
 chartered (1660) King’s Players and Duke’s Players (James, Duke of York)
 influence of French drama through Charles (perform plays the King likes):
FRENCH DRAMA:
 court-in-exile (Charles II)
 AUDIENCE =
o relatively small
o nobility
o up on latest scandals, fashions, jokes
  SATIRE of persons, manners, slightly disguised references to scandals
o liked formal patterns *
 (gardens, dances, drama)
  3 UNITIES:
 Time (one time: “real time”)
 Place (one location)
 Action (one plot)
o PATRONAGE  ARISTOCRATIC BIAS:
 Charles II = patron
 patrons = aristocrats  aristocrats = libertine  art = libertine, rakish, comedies (fops,
dandies, rakes)
 patrons spurned “tasteless barbarians” = middle class, trades people, London city proper
 17th century: art is not profitable  patrons = necessary (BUT…)
 18th century: art is profitable  magazines, subscriptions
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1697 Dryden £1,000+ translating Virgil, 1715 Pope rich from translation of Homer
(NC)
change in $$ = change in literature
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------B. CHARLES II and RESTORATION RELIGION
 restoration of the monarchy = restoration of the Anglican Church
 Anglican clergy VS. Dissenters
 1662: reinstates Book of Common Prayer
 1664: illegal = meetings in which AC forms are not followed
 Jail: non-conformist preachers (John Bunyan)
 1673: Test Act:
o all civil & military officers to receive sacrament according to AC rites & declare disbelief in
transubstantiation
o thus, Dissenters/Non-Conformists & RC = excluded from public life (politics)
o irony: Charles II = secret RC (received RC last rites on deathbed)
 “nonconformity” = (-), associated with
o revolution, regicide, republicanism, rule of Puritan saints
o subversion
o excessive zeal, “enthusiasm” (private revelation), irrationality
 Religious LITERATURE:
o spiritual autobiographies (John Bunyan Pilgrim’s Progress (1678)—Calvinism)
o Calvinism
o Puritanism
o anti-Puritanism
o Anglicanism
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------C. CHARLES II and PHILOSOPHY, IDEOLOGY, RELIGION:
 Dissenters/Non-Conformists, Anglican, Roman Catholic
 because all = quieted by Restoration  allowed time/energy to think of other stuff:
 contentious religious & political matters subdued by Restoration  new forms of secular thought
 other interests:
 (1) pre-Restoration:
o Thomas Hobbes (1651) Leviathan
o philosophic materialism
o advocates absolute government (we need monarchs)
o keeps human nature in check
o *human nature = (-) egoistic, predatory
o hated by Church, attacked on all sides
o provoked, by reaction, an optimism in 18th century 
 (2) post-Restoration:
o optimistic insistence of natural goodness
o *human nature = (+) goodness
 (3) philosophic SKEPTICISM:
o influence on 17th century: ancient Greece; Michael Montaigne (1533-1592)
o skepticism:
 all our knowledge = through SENSES
 BUT senses = wrong (do not report the world around us accurately)
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THUS: reliable knowledge = impossibility
safe to assume then: NO ABSOLUTES
 most beliefs = just opinions
 be guided by traditional in intellectual, political, ethical matters (NC)
limitations of knowledge; constant testing; suspended judgment
DOUBT with regard to human reason (not NC)
BUT ok to keep religious beliefs: Dryden = skeptic, but faith in RC religion
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(4) new science & God:
 paid for by Charles II’s Royal Society
 astronomy, physics, chemistry
  new findings  laws (Boyle’s law for gases, Newton’s laws for gravity) God’s
existence, beneficence, wisdom, order (new laws prove a kind, wise intelligence created &
directs the universe)
 truest truths = simplest (clearest, most general)
 Deism: looked to remove all mystery in religion; Book of Nature VS Book of Bible as
clearest revelation of God’s plan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------D. CHARLES II and POPISH PLOT (1678-81)
 unsuccessful attempt by Parliamentary faction
 to force Charles II to accept bill
 that would exclude James, Duke of York (Catholic) from succession (*see “Glorious Revolution”)
(effect) = 2 clearly defined political parties:
TORIES:
WHIGS:
with the king
against the king
landed gentry
powerful nobles
country clergy
jealous of power
Dissenters
conservatives
against Dissenters
merchants, financiers
for the Test Act
 toleration, commerce
Crown & Church
hostile to new money
(middle class, new nobility)
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JAMES II and the GLORIOUS REVOLUTION
 2 causes of Civil War
o politics (absolutism)
o religion
 2 causes of Glorious Revolution
o James II = opposes Parliament (politics)
o James II = Catholic, supports RC in England (religion)
 1687: Declaration of Indulgence
 suspends Test Act
 suspends penal laws against Dissenters & RC
 James puts co-religionists into military, governmental, university positions
 See POPISH PLOT above
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1688:
o son born to James II  prospect of Roman Catholic succession
o William of Orange = Dutch
 husband to James II’s Protestant daughter Mary
 champion of Protestantism on the Continent
o “bloodless”: James flees to France (12/11/88) & is comfortably set up with wife & son by Louis
XIV at St. Germaine
o “Jacobite”: Scots & some English in favor of the Stuarts
o Jacobite rebellions:
 by James II
 by son James (“Old Pretender”) Francis Edward Stuart (1715) in Scotland to support an
uprising over the newly ascended George I (House of Hanover)
 by grandson Prince Charles Edward (“Bonny Prince Charley”) Stuart (1745) close to success
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WILLIAM & MARY (1688-1702)
 Protestant, tolerant, new era
 resolved problems that divided England
1) political (succession & Parliament)
2) religious (tolerance for Dissenters)
 BILL of RIGHTS (1689):
o limited power of the crown
o reaffirmed supremacy of Parliament
o guaranteed rights of the individual *****
o (“constitutional monarchy”)
o (*success of Enlightenment ideals)
 TOLERATION ACT (1689):
o Princess Anne (James II’s youngest daughter) sole daughter dies
o succession only through Sophia, Electress of Hanover
o granddaughter of James I
o closest Protestant relative to Princess Anne
 principles established in 1689 = unaltered until Reform Bill of 1832
*END of RESTORATION PERIOD*
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ANNE
 last Stuart monarch; weak; stupid?
 renewed tensions, under her reign
 War of Spanish Succession (1702-13):
o France & Spain VS. England, Holland, Austria, Bavaria
o Whig war: supported by Whig lords & merchants
o  rich on war profits & weakening powers of France & Spain
o hero = John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough (political power) at Blenheim (“Blen-hime”), Blenheim
Palace (“Blen-em”)
o spills over to North America: Queen Anne’s War
 1710: Whigs & Dissenters:
o Anne dismissed Whig ministers (threat to Establishment)
o Marlborough (& wife, Sarah, queen’s best friend & puppeteer?) = dismissed, lost command
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o adds Tory ministry
o Robert Harley (treasurer), Henry St. John (Sec. of State)
o Peace/Treaty of Utrecht (1713):
 negotiated by Tories (ends War of Spanish Succession & Queen Anne’s War)
 Britain gets from Spain Gibraltar, Minorca, Asiento (slave contract),
 from France Hudson Bay Co.’s territories (Newfoundland, Acadia, Rupert’s Land), St. Kitts
St. John (Bolingbroke) VS. Harley (Oxford)—lost
*LITERATURE under ANNE:
o lots of political patronage: government sinecures
o Congreve, Prior, Swift, Steele, Addison: $$ for literature AND service to party
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GEORGE I (king 1714-27)
 vindictive Whigs in power  Harley (Tower of London til 1717), St. John (charged with treason with
Pretender, fled to France, pardoned 1723)
 George = son of the late Sophia, Electress of Hanover
 England as a country = rich $$ from war trade & earlier industrialization
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George II: (king 1727-60)
*both Georges = broken English, little interest in England, spent most time in Hanover
 ministers:
o gain power
o independent of the crown
o *modern system of ministerial government begins
o Sir Robert Walpole:
 prime minister, Whig, 1721-42,
 (-) corruption & bribery
 (+) strengthened House of Commons, peace & prosperity, capable government
*GEORGIAN LITERATURE: (1714-60)
 2 kings ignorant of English literature
 Prime Minister = corrupt, indifferent to literature
 English writers NOT offices, government sinecures (no patronage)
 unlike under Queen Anne
  so turn to publishers, with growing readership
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GEORGE III (1760-1820 = 60 years)
 ruled for 60 years; born in England
 Britain = colonial power
 loss of American colonies
 Canada & India (1763) Peace of Paris consolidated power of C&I
 social reform—liberty (John Wilkes = reformer)
 1780 Gordon Riots: mob rule; industrialism
 1789: French Revolution> old tradition of subordination & local self-sufficiency VS. new of liberty, rule of
reason, human rights
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1760-1798: Neo-Classicism
1798-1832: Romantic Period
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RESTORATION LITERATURE (1660-1700)
BACKGROUND
I. STYLE:
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plain & simple
unadorned
unembellished
perspicuous
clarity of thought (lucid prose)
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“decorum”
harmony, balance, proportion, order
wit = Imagination disciplined by Judgment;
propriety f thought & words
common reader  common language,
emotions, “sense”
VARIETY: (of forms, ideologies, values)
A. Conflict of VALUES:
 from politics
 reflected in literature  mixed
 Ren. VS. religion (nonconformist, Dissenters, AC, RC) VS. aristocratic libertines VS. Neo-Classicism
B. Mixed STYLES, IDEOLOGIES, PERIODS:
 John Milton: poems = culmination of Renaissance art (lyric)
 John Dryden: new age of elegance (NC)
 John Bunyan: religious, non-conformist
 Rochester, Sedley: court wits, libertine
 country VS city (ARISTOCRATIC BIAS)
o court =
 fun-loving, dissolute, libertine
 reflected in RAKISH COMEDIES
o country:
 old-fashioned, conservative
 Londoners: middle-class, respectable, pious (Dissenters)
 diaries: Samuel Pepys, John Evelyn exhibit anxiety over moral laxity of Charles II & his
libertine court
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------II. Popular FORMS:
verse
comedy
tragedy (*no 18th century tragedy endures)
heroic play
ode
satire
translation (of Classics)
critical essay
John Dryden:
 #1, dominant figure
 wrote in all popular forms
 “modern” literature (cosmopolitan)
 BUT “English” (Renaissance’s richness & variety; Medieval’s “God’s plenty of Chaucer’s CT”)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------III. CIVIL WARS Period:
 drama: theaters closed
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 poetry: not published, except odes of praise
 prose: of dissent, religious tracts –publish at own peril
 changes in regime = changes in literature
 Puritan censorship
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IV. EXILE INFLUENCE:
 court-in-exile = in Paris
 nobles, courtiers = in Holland
 France: French & Spanish plays in Paris (Charles II)
 Holland: tolerance & mercantile exchange (trade)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------V. RESTORATION:
 fresh start: because of the Civil Wars Period (censorship & closings)
 cut off from direct influence of the Renaissance and Jacobean influences
 some publish what they wrote during the CWP but did not publish
 some try to emulate old, pre-CW styles
 but most start anew
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RESTORATION POETRY:
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Charles II established Poet Laureate (with wine stipend)
court: wrote bawdy, witty poetry
satire
parody
lyric (too subjective, personal—not publicdeclines)
ariel
history (about Civil Wars)
odes (about restoration)
EPIC-HEROIC (#1 form; the English epic; many failures; Paradise Lost)
o RHYMING COUPLET:
 in iambic pentameter:
 decorum, restraint, dignity
 complete statement
 “heroic couplet”
 led to “mock-heroic couplet” (satire)
o retained Renaissance admiration for aristocratic heroic ideal
o wars
o faithful love
o patterns of ideal virtue (to be emulated by princes & generals)
COURT POETS (1660s, 1670s)
 Edmund Waller, John Dryden, Rochester, Buckingham, Dorset, Aphra Behn
 sex, satire, wit
 Earl of Buckingham:
o sexually explicit (defiance to CW Puritans); parody (mock odes, mock pastorals, mock
topographs)—inversion, disruption, wit
o *model for the “RESTORATION RAKE”
 Aphra Behn: (poet, dramatist, novelist, woman)
 JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700)
o satire: "Here lies my wife: Here let her lie! / Now she's at rest. And so am I"
o politics, religion, philosophy, literary theory
o Literary Theory:
o conversational smoothness to English prose
o political opportunist?: born Puritan & praised Cromwell, turned Protestant with Restoration of
Protestant Charles II, turned Catholic with Catholic James II (*see Andrew Marvell)
o poverty: James II = banished (1688), JD lost his position & $$ as Poet Laureate, translations of
Virgil, Ovid, Boccaccio
o Royalist
o Poet Laureate
o odes, pastorals (Jacobean),
o apologetics for the restored Church & Court (Absalom and Achitophel)
o mock-heroic/satiric parody (MacFlecknoe)
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RESTORATION PROSE:
PROSE STYLE:
pre-Civil War, post-Renaissance
 Donne’s sermons
 Milton’s pamphlets
 Sir Thomas Browne’s writings
 * too elaborate: involved, insistently musical,
wittily rhetorical
 (too fancy for exposition or social discourse)
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simple
natural
conversational
clarity, simplicity, tamed wit
metaphors, similes, rhetorical flourishes
o = disapproved because they engage emotion, not reason
o = tolerable in poetry, not in rational discourse
polite literature:
o Dryden, Abraham Cowley, Sir Wm. Temple
o clear, simple, natural style
o reflected the ease & poise of well-bred sophisticated conversation (aristocratic bias)
o *social prose for a social age
o influenced 18th century prose literature:
 Addison, Steele (periodical essays)
 novelists
 letter writing (Horace Walpole, Thomas Gray, Wm. Cowper)
RELIGIOUS (#1) most Puritans = out of public life or adapt
o pro-Civil Wars = suppressed
o both = softened
JOHN BUNYAN (1628-88):
 poor, self-educated (see Ben Jonson, Milton)
 imprisoned for religious beliefs
 PROSE style:
o Pilgrim's Progress
o = influence of Bible (see John Donne & Metaphysical Poets),
o psychological insight, characterization, suspenseful narration
(PP = forerunner of modern novel)
o straightforward (neo-Classical) & allegorical
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RESTORATION LITERATURE:
 The Royal Society decreed that its members use:
 plain, concise, utilitarian prose style
 = suitable for clear communication
 of scientific truths
sermon collections
devotional meditations
reactions to Parliamentary acts (Test Act, Acts of 1st Fruits, of Uniformity)
*Guiding the INDIVIDUAL: Pilgrim’s Progress, Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler, Charles
Cotton’s The Compleat Gamester (and CODIFYING**neo-Classical effect)
NOVEL:
o Romance novel : from France & Spain
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o Aphra Behn: 1 novelist (either sex); fictional biography (some influence on Defoe): Oroonoko
1688; influence of tragedy & her experience as dramatist
JOURNALISM:
o develops late in England
o newspapers (“broadsheets”) influenced of William of Orange from Amsterdam
o London Gazette (Henry Muddiman), The Athenian Mercury (*1st modern newspaper, 1st regularly
published periodical in Eng. @1691, submit questions anonymously [ask.com]; published poetry)
o periodicals
SCIENCE:
o Thomas Sprat History of the Royal Society:
 uses & advocates spare, clean, precise, concise language (neo-Classical)
o John Locke Two Treatises of Government:
 basis for understanding  sound decisions
 best type of government = flexible, absolute monarchy
DIARY:
SAMUEL PEPYS ("peeps") (1633-1703)
o 5th son of family that had risen from yeoman farmers to gentry
o inquisitive & ambitious
o Cambridge (put self through as a waiter)
o 22: married (clever, half-French girl w/ taste for fine clothes)
o energetic & honest
o clerk of king's ships, surveyor general of victualing office, Secretary to the Admiralty, retired
consultant in naval affairs
DIARY:
o written in short-hand
o everything he saw & heard
o trivial conversations
o arguments with his wife
o quarrels & rivalries at court & politics
o scandals & love affairs
o fashion & food ("first" food critic)
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RESTORATION DRAMA:
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Charles II reopened theaters
granted patents to start new theater companies
ordered them to put on old plays & plays that were morally uplifting
o King’s Company (Thomas Killigrew; Theatre Royal at Drury Lane) &
o Duke of York’s Company (Sir William Davenant; Lincoln’s Inn Fields)
2 new playhouses (Christopher Wren design; Duke’s at Dorset Gardens)
aristocratic bias
mixing of genres: tragedy, comedy, history
1st ACTRESSES (Nell Gwynn, Elizabeth Barry)
1660-80: intense rivalry between the 2 patent companies; mid-1670’s = high point of quantity & quality
o TRAGEDY: (1660-1670’s)
 “Heroic Drama”:
 male-dominated
 man = aggressive, powerful, masculine; pursuit of glory (sexual or political); natural
leader
 vogue = 1664-1675
 John Dryden = foremost practitioner
o All for Love (1677) Antony & Cleopatra’s final hours, unities (time/
place/action)
 conflict of love & honor in the heart of
 heroes = impossibly valorous
 ladies = impossibly high-minded, attractive
o TRAGEDY: (1670’s, 1680’s)
 “She-Tragedy”:
 sentimental; pathos; heroines (not heroes);
 sufferings of innocent & virtuous women (Romance)
 perhaps due to emergence of tragic actress (Elizabeth Barry)
 tragic flaw = emotional (rather than intellectual, moral)
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“Political Tragedy”:
 Royalists/Tories VS. Whigs
 see below: Popish Plot & Exclusion Bill (plays @ revolts may be seditious)
o COMEDY: (1660-1690)
 satire: French drama (court-in-exile)
 audience = relatively small, nobility, up on latest scandals, fashions, jokes
  SATIRE of persons, manners, slightly disguised references to scandals
 liked formal patterns (gardens, dances, drama)
  3 UNITIES:
 Time (one time: “real time”)
 Place (one location)
 Action (one plot)
 sexual explicitness: Charles II, court rakes (rakish comedies)
 John Dryden, William Wycherley, Earl of Rochester (rake):
 aristocratic machismo, sexual intrigue & conquest
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Wm. Wycherley (1640-1716), The Country Wife (1672)
Wm. Congreve (1670-1729), Way of the World (1700), Love for Love (1695)
George Farquhar (1677-1707),
Sir George Etherege (1635-91), The Man of Mode (1676)
*COMEDY of MANNERS:
o #1 dramatic form (see court life above)
o critically evaluating the social behavior of the fashionable upper classes of
town
o (anthropological)
o witty
o cynical of human nature (= sensual, egoistic, predatory)
o male:
 rakes
 not for military glory
 but for sexual conquest
o female:
 beautiful, witty, pleasure-loving, emancipated
 man’s equal in strategies of love
o plot =complicated sexual intrigue
o wit & well-bred grace
o indecent language
o indecent situations  1690s Moral Reform
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1682-88: drop-off due to 1) merger of the 2 patent companies; 2) Popish Plot (1678) and Exclusion Bill
Crisis (1671-82)  drop-off in comedies; rise in serious political drama; few comedies = political (Whig
writers VS. Tory writers) (Whigs = for exclusion of James, Tories against exclusion)
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1688-92: after “Glorious Revolution”; comedies again; mismanagement of “United Company”—unified
acting company: investors & Christopher Rich
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1692+: disgruntled actors set up own co-operative (Betterton’s Company); 2-company rivalry again 
renaissance
o plays = softer; middle-class ethos; aimed at wider audience
o *1690’s MORAL REFORM
 1690+ COMEDY:
 William Congreve
 not = sexual, not as obscene
 audience = socially mixed
 audience = strong middle-class attitudes
 audience = included women
 THUS: plays = @ marriage, battle of sexes within marriage
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END of the RESTORATION:
 secular
 tolerant
 moderate, conservative
1690’s MORAL REFORM
 in literature
 in daily life
 “Societies for the Reformation of Manners”
o strict Anglicans
o resurgent non-Conformists
o  informants, spies
o  trials (obscenity, blasphemy, sexual immorality)
o  LITERATURE:
o “wit” = immoral, subversive (-)
o “decorum”
o end of bawdy, obscene Comedy of Manners
o audience = socially mixed, strong middle-class attitudes, included women
o THUS: plays = @ marriage, battle of sexes within marriage
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settle for the possible
settle within limits of intelligence, this world (*here & now)
JOHN LOCKE: (1632-1704)
o Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
o recognize the limits of human understanding
o human business is not to know all things
o human business = to know those things that concern our conduct (*here & now)
 influence on 18th century:
o JONATHAN SWIFT rails against metaphysics, abstract logical deductions, theoretical science
o ALEXANDER POPE: ESSAY ON MAN
o SAMUEL JOHNSON: talks of the “business of living”
o ANGLICAN CHURCH: works over faith; no emotion (“enthusiasm”) in religion
TH
18 century on HUMAN NATURE (+):
o recognize human limitations
o BUT
o optimistic view of human nature
o opposed to Hobbes’ pessimism
o man = naturally good (by instinct)
o man’s highest happiness = in virtue, benevolence
o “sentimental” view
o no “divine” code of ethics (no 10 Commandments, no religion)
o but instinctive & social impulses
o optimistic view of man (benevolence)  social reform*
 (sentimentalism fostered a benevolence that led to social reform; pleasure in following
benevolent impulses)
 improved jails
 relief to imprisoned debtors
 foundling hospitals
 homes for penitent prostitutes
 *abolition of slave trade
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o EMPATHY “sentimentality” (a ready flow of emotions)
 happiness & tears
 compassion in joys & sorrows of others
o “Cult of the Noble Savage” (primitivism)
 a belief in man’s natural goodness 
 civilization corrupts man
 those who live in a state of nature = models of innocence & virtue
 interest in primitive societies
 * since man = naturally good, those closest to that natural state (w/o civilization) = most pure
  influence on late-18th century’s acceptance of Robert Burn’s “natural genius” & of
ROMANTICISM: WW & rural poor, children, simple people
o 1740’s onward:
 rise in religious feeling
 John Wesley (1703-91)
 founder of Methodists
 to the common people
 in open fields
 sin
 “blessed assurance” of the saved post-conversion
 “emotionalism”  repulsed the Anglicans, upper classes
 faith over works
 abolition
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“Book Clubs”
o coffee houses (1652+)
o London
o smoke, gossip, read
o Addison’s “little Senate” at Button’s coffee house (18th century)
o Johnson’s “The Club” at Turk’s coffee house (18th century)
o Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Edward Gibbon
o clubs> come to preside over literary life
o determine tone of literature
o critical reputation of writers
o success/failure of plays
o no women (1750= Mrs. Elizabeth Montegue 1st)
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