One feature of the Restoration comedy which has been often criticised and almost as often defended is its immorality. This genre held a mirror to the high society of the Restoration Age. The society was immortal and so was its image represented by the comedy.
Explanation:
Comedy of manners is used as a synonym of Restoration comedy.[1] After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English drama.[2] 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:
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 generally, or try, like the dramatists of our own time, to work out their own view of character and conduct. What they did was, according to their respective inclinations, to mock at all restraints. Some were gross, others delicately improperThe dramatists did not merely say anything they liked: they also intended to glory in it and to shock those who did not like it.
