Chapter 5 6 John Milton and Restoration Drama

Chapter 5 & 6 John Milton and Restoration Drama and Prose From An Outline of English Literature by Thornley and Roberts

John Milton Shorter poems at Horton n “Lycidas” (1673) – p. 54 a sorrowful pastoral on the death by drowning of Edward King, a student with Milton at Cambridge

John Milton -- Paradise Lost (first printed in 1667) – p. 56 1. setting: the whole universe, Heaven and Hell 2. written in blank verse 3. remarkable thoughts put into musical verse n Paradise Regained (1671) –p. 58 1. less splendid than Paradise Lost 2. occasionally shows the same use of names 3. add to the power and beauty of the sound n

Restoration Drama Charles II became King in 1660 (p. 63) n Theatres opened again, new dramatists appeared. n Tragic drama, mainly heroic plays 1. Men are brave, and the women wonderfully beautiful 2. shouting and nonsense 3. written in heroic couplets n

Restoration Drama n n John Dryden (p. 63) The Couquest of Granada (1670) Auregzebe (1676) 1. a struggle for empire in India 2. rhymed play and finest speeches Also wrote comedy, in blank verse 1. Marriage-a-la-Mode (1672) 2. All for Love (or The World Well Lost, 1678)

Restoration Drama n William Congreve (p. 65) 1. The Way of the World (1700) 2. A comedy, the drawing of women character is good. n Richard Brinsley Sheridan 1. The School for Scandal (1777) 2. introduces three characters whose love of scandal is so great they strike a character dead at every word 3. contains a famous drinking song (p. 66)

Restoration Drama n n John Bunyan (p. 67) – p. 67 The Pilgrim’s Progress 1. allegory of Christian’s Journey to heaven through the evils (all types of people) of the world 2. influenced by his reading of the Bible, preaching Christian truths in the forms of allegory 3. not a novel but possesses some of the new form: lively dialogue and characterization

Restoration Prose n John Dryden 1. Essay on Dramatic Poesie (1668) – p. 67 2. compared English and French Drama, argued that the limitations which the French set themselves by keeping to the unities of time and place 3. defended the use of rhyme in drama, praised Shakespeare 4. important criticism, better critic led the way to a clear reasonable and balanced way of writing English

Restoration Prose n John Locke (p. 67) 1. clear, earnest and without ornament 2. “Essay on the Human Understanding” (1690) 3. gave a new direction to thought not only in England but in other countries of Europe “New Opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. ”