ABSTRACT
French classicism had its peak between 1660 and 1680 and centred on Louis xiv and Jean Racine, supported by a Corneille, a Pascal, a La Rochefoucauld, a Bossuet and a Boileau. English writers, picking up the threads after Cromwell’s regime, on the return of the King from France, slipped quite easily back into the traditional mould. The Court had indeed imported certain foreign habits, refinements in speech and dress, and French theories presented a challenge to poets who took it up half-heartedly. The merits of Restoration comedy have little to do with classicism, whatever the definition one might give. The English way of writing has always been freer and more pragmatic in its approach to life, history and art. Irene presents an ossified structure whereas Irene seems to have held a promise for the future. The self-deprecatory, sometimes even farcical tone of many Augustan prologues and epilogues calls for comment in passing; they may be witty, but they often jar.
