prose, poetry, and drama written in English in Britain during the Restoration (the
period when the monarchy, in the person of Charles II, was re-established after the
English Civil War and the fall of the Protectorate in 1660). See also English literature.
The restoration of Charles II to the throne liberated creative writing from the
restrictions of the Protectorate. The best known genre of the period was the bawdy
and lively Restoration comedy, the work of English dramatists such as William
Wycherley who wrote The Country Wife (1675). However, there was a sharply
contrasting religious output from writers such as the English poet John Milton
(‘Paradise Lost’, 1667, ‘Paradise Regained’, 1671, ‘Sampson Agonistes’, 1671) and the
imprisoned English writer of religious allegory and spiritual autobiography, John
Bunyan (Pilgrim’s Progress, 1678–1684). There is some debate as to how far this
period overlaps with the Augustan. Here, the watershed is taken as the accession of
William III in 1689 after the revolution of the previous year.