Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Politics had a profound effect on both the form and the content of Restoration drama. Yet this is a subject about which misconceptions abound. Here are some examples of common critical fallacies: that Restoration drama is effete and courtly, lacking any political ‘guts’ and vitality (old-fashioned, but surprisingly persistent); that drama was largely apolitical until the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis led to sudden politicization; that in so far as the drama was political, it was mainly royalist and Tory; conversely, that the only drama of real interest in this period is that which prefigures the rise of Whig and/or bourgeois drama; that anti-Catholic drama is not political; that political commentary in the drama is incidental and occasional, rather than sustained and central. What follows is not an attempt to engage head-on with these mistaken notions. Rather, it is (I hope) a clear and concise survey of Restoration drama's engagement with politics and the effect of politics on the drama from 1660 to the end of the Exclusion Crisis. After that, there was (not completely but to all intents and purposes) a lull until the Williamite revolution of 1688.The immediate effects of the Civil War, Interregnum and Restoration of 1660 can be seen in the satirical comedies of the early 1660s. Often, these comedies deal explicitly with the events of the Interregnum from a royalist point of ... log in or subscribe to read full text