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Imagination, Invention, Exploration, and Experiment

Imagination, Invention, Exploration, and Experiment. British Literature 1660-1832 Prof. T. Howe.

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Imagination, Invention, Exploration, and Experiment

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  1. Imagination, Invention, Exploration, and Experiment British Literature 1660-1832 Prof. T. Howe

  2. Charles II, 1630–1685. King of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1660–1685); reigned during the Restoration, a period of expanding trade and colonization as well as strong opposition to Catholicism—though he himself had Catholic tendencies, having spent his exile in the French court. Charles was a ruler of considerable political skill. His reign was marked by a gradual increase in the power of Parliament, which he learned to circumvent rather than manipulate. The period also saw the rise of the great political parties, Whig and Tory; the advance of colonization and trade in India, America, and the East Indies; and the great progress of England as a sea power. The pleasure-loving character of the king set the tone of the brilliant Restoration period in art and literature. Charles II was the son of Charles I, executed in 1649 after the Civil Wars. After the Interregnum, so called because there was no king but a “Lord Protectorate,” Oliver Cromwell, Charles returned from exile in France to bring stability and elegance to a world turned upside down. But, the damage had been done: “If a king could be executed, what authority was safe?” (Abrams & Greenblatt, 2049).

  3. The New Science—”Natural History” • Political Conflict • Political turbulence from Civil Wars and Interregnum subsided only gradually • Conflict of Values • New values of elegance and libertinism represented by the courtly king / fears of moral laxity Charles II was a great patron of new ideas, both in art and science Reopened the theatres, dark since the Civil Wars and Puritan regime of the Interregnum Brought with him French theatrical conventions Chartered the Royal Society of London for the Improving of Natural Knowledge (1662)

  4. Sprat, Thomas (1635-1713). The history of the Royal-Society of London, for the improving of natural knowledge.London, Printed by T. R. for J. Martyn and J. Allestry, Printers to the Royal Society, 1667.

  5. Title Page from Hooke’s Micrographia (1665). EEBO.

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