Introduction

Summary

The Postsecular Restoration undertakes an exploration of a phenomenon that is often remarked upon but frequently disavowed: that many of the writers of the Restoration period who are considered innovators in the literary field – in particular Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn, and John Dryden – were politically conservative, in that they supported monarchy, they were Catholic, they were intolerant, or they were antidemocratic. This book makes the case for the synergistic relationship between a nascent postsecular worldview – one based not on clinging to tradition but in a thoughtful response to emergent liberal secular ideals and practices – and the emergence of the modern sphere of literature, in which conservative writers play a prominent role. Thus, it addresses a critical blind spot: The conservative political orientation of these writers has typically been treated as separate from their literary contributions, leveraged against their literary contributions, explained away as a function of their historical conditions, or ignored altogether. One reason for this may be that literary scholars tend to identify with liberal or progressive politics, and, as a result, our means of seeing connections between literature and politics have tended to obscure questions of how conservative political orientation and literary innovations relate.