Start Of The Restoration

Front 1

What happened after the collapse of the Puritan Republic?

Back 1

1. Parliament restored the monarchy and the Anglican Church in 1660

2. Full powers of the Crown never restored and taxing authority irrevocably given to Parliament only

3. Declaration of Breda (1660): Charles II's general pardon for Civil War crimes and a promise of religious toleration for Protestant 'dissenters'

Front 2

Why was everyone suspicious of Charles's brother?

Back 2

Suspected of Catholic sympathies and authoritarian tendencies

Front 3

What was the political culture of the Restoration?

Back 3

1. Growth of the state, with a professional bureaucracy and sound finances

2. Party politics: Whigs and Tories

Front 4

What ideas did the Enlightenment popularise?

Back 4

1. The authority of reason

2. Toleration, moderation, distrust of dogmatism

3. Hopeful of the perfectibility of man

4. Wider dissemination of learning

5. Drive for constitutional government

Front 5

Define public sphere

Back 5

A cultural arena free from direct government control where individuals could meet and mix to discuss current ideas

Front 6

After the Civil War, how were differences of opinion settled?

Back 6

Sociability, urbanity and politeness

Front 7

Describe literature between 1660-1700

Back 7

1. Neoclassical refinement

2. Elegant simplicity, clarity, regularity, restraint and 'sense'

3. The heroic couplet (rhymed pentametre couplets)

4. Bawdy Restoration comedy

Front 8

Describe literature between 1700-1760

Back 8

1. Built on Restoration literature but moved away from it's bawdiness towards witty, often political, satire

2. Brilliant artifice

3. The rise of the novel

Front 9

What was libertinism?

Back 9

1. Aristocratic culture of pleasure and debauchery

2. Rakes: immoral, prodigal hell-raisers

Front 10

What do academics say about Rochester's poetry?

Back 10

'At the centre of Rochester's poems on love, there is an empty space.' (Marianne Thormahlen, quoted in Ballater, p. 208)

'Rochester's representations of eroticism are less concerned with sexual pleasure than the struggle for power' (Ballaster, p. 212)

Front 11

What does Schmidt have to say about Rochester's time?

Back 11

'Divine sanction gone, there was less a sense of right than of success in the air.' (p. 301, The Lives of the Poets)

Front 12

Why is said about Behn's representation of Lysander and Cloris in 'The Disappointment'?

Back 12

'"taken together, these two myths shift the story to the point of view of a disappointed and fearful - but nevertheless desiring woman."' (Barash quoted in Munns, p. 214)

Front 13

In considering sexual freedom and power, what question does Warren Chernaik raise about Rochester's 'The Imperfect Enjoyment'?

Back 13

'is the libertine poet defiantly flaunting his bisexuality and sexual buccaneering in scorn of conventional ideas of restraint, or is the persona satirised for his selfish pursuit of sexual pleasure devoid of feeling?' (p. 60, 'Sexual Freedom in Restoration Literature')