Category:Restoration comedy

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Articles related to Restoration comedy, English comedy written and performed in the Restoration period of 1660–1710. Comedy of manners is used as a synonym for this. After public stage performances were banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the reopening of the theatres in 1660 marked a renaissance of English drama. Sexually explicit language was encouraged by King Charles II (1660–1685) personally and by the rakish style of his court. Historian George Norman Clark argues that the best-known fact about the Restoration drama is that it is immoral. The dramatists did not criticize the accepted morality about gambling, drink, love, and pleasure, they mocked restraints. The dramatists did not merely say anything they liked: they also intended to glory in it and to shock those who did not like it.