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The Life and Works of Dramatist Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn left a legacy of being not only a complex and enigmatic woman, but a poet, a playwright, a writer, a novelist, and a spy. A commoner who blended with the royalty and revolted against the societal norms with her lewd yet cunning writings, she exhibited the influence of more than just a writer of her time period and left her mark in the canon of English literature by creating her own genre of amatory. She was a feminist, an adventurist, an abolitionist and a civil rights advocate; she encompassed a figure of brilliance and intrigue and the writings she left behind from the seventeenth century only reiterate her ideology. An example of such is the short novel Oroonoko written in 1688 that explores slavery and the impact of civilization all intertwined into a tragic love story. Her works and the influences they cast prove Behn to be a dramatist worthy of the ranks of other famous British writers in this time period.
A woman shrouded by mystery, drama and sensuality, Aphra Behn’s early life appears seemingly contradictory to the author colored by her writings. Although most of Behn’s earlier years are unrecorded in history, it is known however that she was raised strictly under a Catholic influence. Behn later disclosed that she had been "designed for a nun" in her early life and the fact that she had so many Catholic connections not only displayed the irony in her sexualized works, but could have instigated suspicions by other anti-Catholics during the revolt in the 1680s against the Catholic Church (Goreau 243). Born on the tenth of July in 1640 near a town called Canterbury and referred to as the Wye , Aphra was baptized under the name Eaffry and was the second child to he...
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Works Cited
Cavendish, Margaret. "The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing World." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. 2178-2226. Print.
Clark, George, R. G. Collingwood, J. N. L. Myres, F. M. Stenton, Austin Lane. Poole, Maurice Powicke, ,. May. McKisack, E. F. Jacob, J. D. Mackie, J. B. Black, Godfrey Davies, Basil Williams, J. Steven. Watson, Llewellyn Woodward, R. C. K. Ensor, A. J. P. Taylor, and Richard Raper. The Oxford History of England. Oxford: Clarendon, 1964. 294-303. Print.
Goreau, Angeline. Reconstructing Aphra: a Social Biography of Aphra Behn. New York: Dial, 1980. Print.
Summers, Montague. "Memoir of Aphra Behn." Feminism and Women's Studies (1914). Web.
Todd, Janet M. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers UP, 1997. Print.
Aphra Behn's tale of Oroonoko is not only a tragic love story. It is also a story about slavery and how it can kill a person. The relationship between Oroonoko and Imoinda is described as pure and innocent. Their story compliments the point that Behn was trying to make about slavery. Slavery can kill hope, purity, and innocence. Slavery does not only kill the human spirit. It slaughters it.
Oroonoko is a fascinating text overflowing with descriptions of complex relations between and within the different races. The attitudes and actions of the Aphra Behn and her characters would make for a rich analysis from any number of behavioral approaches, but there are many more layers to this story than the dominant racial themes. In fact, in "Oroonoko’s Blackness" Catherine Gallagher argues that the main character’s unusually dark skin color actually represents kingship, commodification, and the degree to which he and the author are embodied in the work. Though Gallagher recognizes the significance of Oroonoko’s ethnicity in the conflict between the African and European groups, she writes that it is displaced by these three ideas when examined from other perspectives. At times her arguments for this are difficult to decipher and appear contradictory, especially in the explanations on textuality, embodiment and transcendence, but, overall, the claims of the criticism are strong and convincing.
Dyck, Reginald. "The Feminist Critique of Willa Cather's Fiction: A Review Essay." Women's Studies 22 (1993): 263-279.
...eristics of feminism but did not fully grasp them. They act as a perfect representation of women in the Middle Ages to Scholasticism period that went through social suppression by enlightening readers of the men’s misconduct against them. These two women started a movement that changed the course of history for humankind, even for being fictional and nonfictional pieces.
Woodcock, George. "Brave New World: Overview." Reference Guide to English Literature. Ed. D. L. Kirkpatrick. 2nd ed. Chicago: St. James Press, 1991. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 Mar. 2011.
Lawall, Sarah N. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. 8th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Print.
Saikaku, Ihara. Life of a Sensuous Woman. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3rd Ed. Volume D. Ed. Martin Puchner. New York: Norton, 2013. 591-611. Print.
Saikaku, Ihara. Life of a Sensuous Woman. The Longman Anthology of World Literature. (Vol. D) Ed. Damrosch. New York: Pearson, 2004. 604-621. [Excerpt.]
Vickers, K. H. A History of England: (Volume III) England in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1937).
Dao, Bei. “Notes from the City of the Sun.” One World of Literature. Ed. Lim, Shirley G., and Spencer, Norman A. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. 231-233. Print.
Aphra Behn, a remarkable author who “‘…earned… [women]…the right to speak their minds’”, who was not afraid to speak her mind herself as evident in her works, and was a writer that aided in paving the way for women’s rights through the literature world (The Norton Anthology 2308). A majority of Behn’s works serve to further the voice of women in the oppressed society in which they were living in and this work being examined is no exception to this. The Disappointment serves as a perfect satiric companion to John Wilmot’s satire The Imperfect Enjoyment, in which instead of the sympathy being placed on the “unfortunate” man who cannot perform, the consideration is retained on the woman’s feelings during this situation instead. This may not seem awe-inspiring, but for a time period when a gender whose side in not often portrayed, this is very significant. In the text, Behn is acting as a voice for the women of that era. She is giving women a platform to stand on to push against this male dominated society; thus providing power for the unheard. By using specific diction, meter, and so forth Behn’s work, The Disappointment, is a vessel in which she demonstrates and satires the patriarchal dominance over women in society.
...Own: Attitudes Toward Women in Willa Cather's Short Fiction." Modern Fiction Studies 36:1 (Spring 1990): 81-89.
- - - . New Heaven and New Earth: Visionary Experience in Literature. New York: Vanguard Press, 1979. Print.
Morgan, Kenneth O. (Ed.), The Oxford Popular History of Britain, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 1993.