The 17th century in many ways the century of transition into our modern world

The 17th century in many ways the century of transition into our modern world. Restoration literature is the English literature written during the historical period commonly referred to as the English Restoration lasted from 1660 to around 1688. The name 'restoration' comes from the crowning of Charles II, which marks the restoring of the traditional English monarchical form of government following a short period of rule by a handful of republican governments. The prose was the main genre. It is dominated by Christian religious writing, but the Restoration also saw the beginnings of two genres that would dominate later periods: fiction and journalism. Social behavior and social manners are big themes in Restoration literature. The writers of this period were obsessed with social life: who people fall in love with, who they want to marry, who they betray, and how much money they have or don't have. John Milton, john Dryden, George Etherege, William Congreve and few others were the writers of this period. Drama: We generally notice two kinds of developments in this period, namely the Heroic plays and the Comedy of Manners. These plays were quite different from Elizabethan plays in some ways. Heroic plays showed the heroic virtues in noble men, and the women were described as wonderfully beautiful. The tragic drama of this period was made up of heroic plays which were mainly written in heroic couplet. The main character in these plays was torn between the patriotic duty to their country and their duty as a lover. In these dramas we find brave heroes, beautiful women, a great deal of shouting and nonsense things.
The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was an intellectual and cultural movement in the 18^th century that emphasized reason over superstition and science over blind faith. from the late 17th century to the ending of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. It was an intellectual and philosophical movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century that saw the rise of concepts such as reason, liberty and the scientific method. There were 6 main ideas: deism, liberalism, republicanism, conservatism, toleration and scientific progress. This period saw the rise of the political pamphlet and essay, but the leading genre of the Enlightenment became the novel. Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and celebration of reason, the power by which humans understand the universe and improve their own condition. The goals of rational humanity were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness. The great representatives of Enlightenment literature in England were the novelists Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, the popular poet Robert Burns, and others.