Restoration drama

During the Restoration in literature imagination was slowly replaced by reason and Elizabethan drama’s passion and stravagance gave way to self-control and balance. So writers began to look for new models to follow  classics of the past. The foundation of the Royal Society in 1662 caused a great improvement of English prose, also because the new sperimental science needed a clearer and more concise language. Than english prose abandoned its old conceits and obscurities (metaphisical poetry/elizab. drama) and become simpler and more precise. Restoration prose writers can be divided into two groups: 1) PHILOSOPHERS THOMAS HOBBES (1588-1679) He was son of a clergyman and after studies, become a fervent royalist who left England during the period of the civil war and the Commonwealth. Returned in England and than died at the age of 91. His most important works are: - Leviathan - De corpore, de homine, de cive (philosophical treatises) - Vita carmine expressa (autobiography). - his philosophy was materialistic, ‘cause he mantained that “all is real, is material” - he didn’t believe in the existance of a supernatural power, in opposition to religion thought and the existance of the soul, so he denied free will - he thought.