Drama Under the Restoration Period

Restoration period started in 1660 with the accession of Charles II on English throne after the submission of the Puritan government that assumed the control in 1642. With the restoration, the reaction against manner and moral are inevitable. It was all the more voilent owing to the return of Cavaliers who had spent their exile in France. As the Cavaliers return to England, they bring with themselves the French wit and French gallentry. The king, Charles II, was himself indolent sensualist possessed wit. Charles II encouraged an atmosphere of hedonistic loneliness at court. Charles II set the tone for the court wit, if not for all the literature of the period at least certain segment of it, notably dramatic comedy. The amoral wit and hedonism were professed by restoration wit. There was no connection of restoration wit with real life. Besides, the Puritan government stopped the performance of play in September 1642, but there was an occassional surreptitious performances at various theatre after the passing of ordinance of supression. Therefore, it could be said that English theatre had no existence between 1642 and 1660. With the restoration, the theatre was re-established. It was a different theatre playing to different audience. The modern theatre with its movable secenary designed to create a visual image of locale of each scene and artifical light. The audience of the restoration was different and had strong affinity with the geographical and social parameter. The restoration period also represented stylization of deliberatly cultivated upper class ethos. The break with the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre was not as sharp as it seems. There was a great influence of Ben Jonson on the playwrights of this period, particularly the adoption of comedy of humour that attached with moral values. The first accomplished follower of Jonson tradition in his plays during the restoration age was Sir George Etherage. Francis Beaumont and Fletcher, who began the process of aerating of Jonson with more flippant kind of wit and a less moral tone. The other playwrights who contributed significantly were William Wychearly and William Congreve. Dryden also wrote play for the court but he failed to achieve the same reputation as other playwrights did. During the restoration period, the genre of drama headed towards the decadence and prose gradually gaining acceptance among the people with the emergence of pamphelts.