Matching Restoration Authors and Works

The idea

The exam often asks you to match a work to its author, and the Restoration has several easy confusions. Sort by genre first. In verse satire, Dryden wrote "Mac Flecknoe," on a dull poet, and Absalom and Achitophel, on Charles and the Exclusion Crisis; Rochester wrote A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind. In comedy, Wycherley wrote The Country Wife, Congreve The Way of the World, and Behn The Rover. In prose, Behn wrote Oroonoko, Bunyan The Pilgrim's Progress, and Pepys his Diary. Then use a clue in the passage: a biblical name for a living politician points to Dryden, a royal slave to Behn, a pilgrim with a burden to Bunyan, a dated entry about the Fire to Pepys. Last, check the date: works after sixteen sixty belong here, but Paradise Lost, published in sixteen sixty-seven, belongs to Milton's earlier formation, not to Restoration wit.