Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T03:32:29.814Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - John Bunyan and Restoration literature

from Part I - John Bunyan in his seventeenth-century context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2010

Anne Dunan-Page
Affiliation:
Université de Provence
Get access

Summary

Most of the works John Bunyan published in print, and indeed most of what he wrote, was compiled during the Restoration. This was a period with clear boundaries in English history, witnessing the return of the monarchy in the shape of the two sons of Charles I, first Charles II between 1660 and 1685 and then James II between 1685 and 1688. The shape of these regimes was particularly relevant to Bunyan since as a dissenter he suffered from the policies of religious discrimination that the government of each monarch adopted towards Protestant nonconformists, although James II favoured toleration of dissenters in order to gain the same for Roman Catholics. The pathetic end of James's reign in the Glorious Revolution, in the year of Bunyan's death, ensured greater freedom for dissenters and the end of the 'great persecution', but even before Charles's ascent to the throne in 1660 the twenty years of the 'Puritan Revolution' had seen advocates of the Baptist Calvinism for which Bunyan stood grow from a tiny and persecuted minority to become a flourishing community. The fortunes of the literary history of the Restoration fluctuate. Eighty years ago drama, much of it libertine in character, was the subject of much fascination. Three or four decades ago, a flourishing industry was devoted to reconstructing and restoring the texts, reputation and activities of John Dryden. Between the 1960s and the 1980s, however, the Restoration was largely eclipsed by the dazzle of the 1640s and 1650s, and study of major Restoration themes and authors dwindled significantly, with the possible exception of the study of Puritan literature.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×