What do you understand by the Restoration Period? Highlight some of the characteristics of the age.

 The Restoration refers to the restoration of the monarchy when Charles II was restored to the throne of England following an eleven-year Commonwealth period during which the country was governed by Parliament under the direction of the Puritan General Oliver Cromwell. This political event coincides with (and to some extent is responsible for changes in the literary, scientific, and cultural life of Britain. 

During this time, a premium was placed on the importance of human reason and on an empirical philosophy that held that knowledge about the world was through the

senses and by applying reason to what we take in through our senses. Reason was an unchanging, uniquely human characteristic that served as a guide for man. Thus this time is often also called the Age of Reason or Enlightenment. Characteristics of this period included observing human nature and nature itself which were considered unchanging and constant. 

The age is also known as the Neo-classical period. Writers of the time placed great emphasis on the original writings produced by classical Greek and Roman literature.

The literature of this period imitated that of the age of Caesar Augustus, writers such as: Horaceand Virginip lassical inuenica a pearing prevalent in poetry with the use of rhyming, and in prose with its satirical form. The Augustans deemed classical literature as natural, that these works were the idealized models for waiting The Neoclassical ideals of order, logicutestraint accueilly correctness, decorum…. would enable the practitioners of various arts to imitate or reproduce the structures or themes of Greek or Roman originals” (Victorian Web). Alexander Pope furthers this idea as he says “Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem: To copy Nature is in copy them sayon Criticism. The way to stardy nature is to study the ancients: the styles and rules of classical literature. Closely allied with the emphasis placed on the classics and the unchanging rules of nature was the belief that reason was an unchanging and unique human quality that served as a guide for man. 

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