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Oroonoko, The Rover and Other Works
'We are bought and sold like apes or monkeys, to be the sport of women, fools, and cowards, and the support of rogues’.
When Prince Oroonoko’s passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko’s noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn’s visit to Surinam, Oroonoko (1688) reflects the author’s romantic view of Native Americans as simple, superior peoples 'in the first state of innocence, before men knew how to sin’. The novel also reveals Behn’s ambiguous attitude to African slavery – while she favoured it as a means to strengthen England’s power, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality.
This new edition of Oroonoko is based on the first printed edition of 1688, and includes a chronology, bibliography and notes. In her introduction, Janet Todd examines Aphra Behn’s views of slavery, colonization and politics, and her position as a professional woman writer in the Restoration.
Prose:
The Fair Jilt
Oroonoko
Love-Letters to a Gentleman
Plays:
The Rover
The Widow Ranter
Poems:
Love Armed
Epilogue to Sir Patient Fancy
The Disappointment
To Mr. Creech (under the name of Daphnis) on his excellent translation of Lucretius
A letter to Mr. Creech at Oxford, written in the last great frost
Song: On her loving two equally
To the fair Clarinda, who made love to me, imagined more than woman
On Desire: A Pindaric
A Pindaric poem to the Reverend Doctor Burnet
When Prince Oroonoko’s passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko’s noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn’s visit to Surinam, Oroonoko (1688) reflects the author’s romantic view of Native Americans as simple, superior peoples 'in the first state of innocence, before men knew how to sin’. The novel also reveals Behn’s ambiguous attitude to African slavery – while she favoured it as a means to strengthen England’s power, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality.
This new edition of Oroonoko is based on the first printed edition of 1688, and includes a chronology, bibliography and notes. In her introduction, Janet Todd examines Aphra Behn’s views of slavery, colonization and politics, and her position as a professional woman writer in the Restoration.
Prose:
The Fair Jilt
Oroonoko
Love-Letters to a Gentleman
Plays:
The Rover
The Widow Ranter
Poems:
Love Armed
Epilogue to Sir Patient Fancy
The Disappointment
To Mr. Creech (under the name of Daphnis) on his excellent translation of Lucretius
A letter to Mr. Creech at Oxford, written in the last great frost
Song: On her loving two equally
To the fair Clarinda, who made love to me, imagined more than woman
On Desire: A Pindaric
A Pindaric poem to the Reverend Doctor Burnet
400 pages, Paperback
First published November 28, 1688
37 people are currently reading
889 people want to read
About the author
Aphra Behn
306 books246 followersAphra Behn, or Ayfara Behn, of the first professional women authors in English on Britain wrote plays, poetry, and her best known work, the prose fiction
Oroonoko
(1688).
Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the Restoration and was one of the female. Her contributed to the amatory genre of literature. People sometimes refer to Delarivier Manley, Eliza Haywood, and her as part of "the fair triumvirate of wit."
In reckoning of Adeline Virginia Stephen Woolf, more important total career of Behn produced any particular work. Woolf wrote, "All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn … for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." Victoria Mary Sackville-West called Behn "an inhabitant of Grub Street with the best of them, … a phenomenon never seen and … furiously resented." Felix Shelling called her "a very gifted woman, compelled to write for bread in an age in which literature … catered habitually to the lowest and most depraved of human inclinations. Her success depended upon her ability to write like a man." Edmund Gosse remarked that "the George Sand of the Restoration" lived the bohemian life in London in the 17th century as Paris two centuries later.
Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the Restoration and was one of the female. Her contributed to the amatory genre of literature. People sometimes refer to Delarivier Manley, Eliza Haywood, and her as part of "the fair triumvirate of wit."
In reckoning of Adeline Virginia Stephen Woolf, more important total career of Behn produced any particular work. Woolf wrote, "All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn … for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." Victoria Mary Sackville-West called Behn "an inhabitant of Grub Street with the best of them, … a phenomenon never seen and … furiously resented." Felix Shelling called her "a very gifted woman, compelled to write for bread in an age in which literature … catered habitually to the lowest and most depraved of human inclinations. Her success depended upon her ability to write like a man." Edmund Gosse remarked that "the George Sand of the Restoration" lived the bohemian life in London in the 17th century as Paris two centuries later.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
January 6, 2016
(I read this book as part of a reading project I have undertaken with some other nerdy friends in which we read The Novel: A Biography and some of the other texts referenced by Schmidt.)
Oh, Aphra Behn. A fascinating woman that no one knows that much about because who cares about women, especially in the 17th-century! Boring! Women don't write! And if they do, it's just "scribbling" (says Nathaniel Hawthorne), and they certainly don't get paid for it.
Well, Aphra Behn did get paid. Virginia Woolf said Aphra Behn was the first woman in history paid for her writing, which is pretty exciting. And for that reason alone I don't understand why we don't know more about her. Well, she's not Shakespeare, right? So probably not worth studying.
Luckily I went to a women's college and we did get to read Aphra Behn. That was my first experience with her, and I had the bestest professor for the occasion. I wish she was sitting on the couch beside me while I read this collection because, sadly, I forgot everything she told us and she was a hoot in lectures anyway so it would have just been fun having her here to giggle about the dirty things Behn may have implied.
Also, Behn was a spy. If that's not bad-ass, I don't know what is.
The Fair Jilt (1688):
The story of a young woman, Miranda, who tries to seduce a man, and when that fails, she accuses him of rape. She hooks up with a prince, but blows her wad and is sad she has no more money. So she invites her sister to come live with her, totally mind-fucks her out of having any healthy relationship with other men, and, oh, steals a bunch of her money. As if Miranda wasn't fucked up enough, she took things to a whole new level
Fine enough story, though sort of tedious at times. Interesting in that Behn wrote it as it was - based on a true story - but her audience didn't believe her because there was no Google in the 17th century. In the historical fiction context, makes me think of Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace... except only 70-some pages long and not nearly as good.
Oroonoko (1688):
Oroonoko is the grandson of an African king who falls in love with a general's daughter, Imoinda. The king also falls in love with Imoinda, which one can imagine leads to some complication. One thing leads to another, Imoinda is sold into slavery, but Oroonoko is told that she's dead, but then Oroonoko himself is captured and put into slavery, and huzzah! They are reunited again.
But things still don't end happily.
I read this originally in college and remember thinking it was pretty great, if for no other reason that it was a good example of a 17th century female writer - a time when there were not many published women writers. But as an older reader I see it's not flawless (though I'm sure I realized it at the time too, but was maybe a bit more forgiving about it than I am now), and am reminded just how unenlightened people were 300-some years ago.
Overall, though, this is narrative prose, and it's not always terribly exciting or interesting to read. I can't say this is a flaw of Behn's since I've been reading other 16th and 17th-century writers recently and they're all relatively boring in their own ways.
Love-Letters to a Gentleman (1696):
I don't really understand what this is. Letters from Astrea to, presumably, a gentleman, Lycidas, but there's a whopping 8 letters and takes up just a few pages. It appears from the notes that this was from a larger posthumous collection, but were there more letters? Is this just a piece of something larger? God, I hate that. Give me the whole thing, or don't give me anything at all.
The notes also indicate that Lycidas may have been based on a real person with whom Behn allegedly ran around with, so maybe she's Astrea here, writing veiled letters as a "character". I don't know. This wasn't long enough to get a strong enough grasp on or for it to make any sort of impression.
The Rover (1677):
Another one I originally read in college, but my memory of it has been so fuzzy that it was good to revisit it now.
There's a lot happening in this play, but it's such fun to read. A woman is on a quest to find some lovin before her brother sends her to the nunnery (because that's what all single women had to do at one time in history), a man (the rover) falls in love with her, but a famous prostitute falls in love with him and doesn't handle the fact that he loves someone else very well. Some other stuff happens (believe it or not) but as far as I'm concerned it's not nearly as interesting to read about, let alone write about.
The Widow Ranter, or the History of Bacon in Virginia (1689):
A play. About bacon.
Not really. Bacon is a man, a real man, who was involved in Bacon's Rebellion which is not about the pork uprising. And Bacon's Rebellion is what this play is about.
Also, GADZOORS. There's a lot of that. Whatever that means. Gadzoors, indeed.
Poems (various):
There were really only a few poems, and they were fine. I'm not the biggest fan of poetry, and 17th-century poetry is not high on my list of favorite poetry, but it was fine anyway.
Oh, Aphra Behn. A fascinating woman that no one knows that much about because who cares about women, especially in the 17th-century! Boring! Women don't write! And if they do, it's just "scribbling" (says Nathaniel Hawthorne), and they certainly don't get paid for it.
Well, Aphra Behn did get paid. Virginia Woolf said Aphra Behn was the first woman in history paid for her writing, which is pretty exciting. And for that reason alone I don't understand why we don't know more about her. Well, she's not Shakespeare, right? So probably not worth studying.
Luckily I went to a women's college and we did get to read Aphra Behn. That was my first experience with her, and I had the bestest professor for the occasion. I wish she was sitting on the couch beside me while I read this collection because, sadly, I forgot everything she told us and she was a hoot in lectures anyway so it would have just been fun having her here to giggle about the dirty things Behn may have implied.
Also, Behn was a spy. If that's not bad-ass, I don't know what is.
The Fair Jilt (1688):
The story of a young woman, Miranda, who tries to seduce a man, and when that fails, she accuses him of rape. She hooks up with a prince, but blows her wad and is sad she has no more money. So she invites her sister to come live with her, totally mind-fucks her out of having any healthy relationship with other men, and, oh, steals a bunch of her money. As if Miranda wasn't fucked up enough, she took things to a whole new level
Fine enough story, though sort of tedious at times. Interesting in that Behn wrote it as it was - based on a true story - but her audience didn't believe her because there was no Google in the 17th century. In the historical fiction context, makes me think of Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace... except only 70-some pages long and not nearly as good.
Oroonoko (1688):
Oroonoko is the grandson of an African king who falls in love with a general's daughter, Imoinda. The king also falls in love with Imoinda, which one can imagine leads to some complication. One thing leads to another, Imoinda is sold into slavery, but Oroonoko is told that she's dead, but then Oroonoko himself is captured and put into slavery, and huzzah! They are reunited again.
But things still don't end happily.
I read this originally in college and remember thinking it was pretty great, if for no other reason that it was a good example of a 17th century female writer - a time when there were not many published women writers. But as an older reader I see it's not flawless (though I'm sure I realized it at the time too, but was maybe a bit more forgiving about it than I am now), and am reminded just how unenlightened people were 300-some years ago.
Overall, though, this is narrative prose, and it's not always terribly exciting or interesting to read. I can't say this is a flaw of Behn's since I've been reading other 16th and 17th-century writers recently and they're all relatively boring in their own ways.
Love-Letters to a Gentleman (1696):
I don't really understand what this is. Letters from Astrea to, presumably, a gentleman, Lycidas, but there's a whopping 8 letters and takes up just a few pages. It appears from the notes that this was from a larger posthumous collection, but were there more letters? Is this just a piece of something larger? God, I hate that. Give me the whole thing, or don't give me anything at all.
The notes also indicate that Lycidas may have been based on a real person with whom Behn allegedly ran around with, so maybe she's Astrea here, writing veiled letters as a "character". I don't know. This wasn't long enough to get a strong enough grasp on or for it to make any sort of impression.
The Rover (1677):
Another one I originally read in college, but my memory of it has been so fuzzy that it was good to revisit it now.
There's a lot happening in this play, but it's such fun to read. A woman is on a quest to find some lovin before her brother sends her to the nunnery (because that's what all single women had to do at one time in history), a man (the rover) falls in love with her, but a famous prostitute falls in love with him and doesn't handle the fact that he loves someone else very well. Some other stuff happens (believe it or not) but as far as I'm concerned it's not nearly as interesting to read about, let alone write about.
The Widow Ranter, or the History of Bacon in Virginia (1689):
A play. About bacon.
Not really. Bacon is a man, a real man, who was involved in Bacon's Rebellion which is not about the pork uprising. And Bacon's Rebellion is what this play is about.
Also, GADZOORS. There's a lot of that. Whatever that means. Gadzoors, indeed.
Poems (various):
There were really only a few poems, and they were fine. I'm not the biggest fan of poetry, and 17th-century poetry is not high on my list of favorite poetry, but it was fine anyway.
January 22, 2025
This feels like a decent one-volume selection of a prolific writer's work. She had an interesting life, working as a royalist spy in Holland and writing as a day job because the Stuarts didn't pay. I'm not sure if that means she was an unpaid freelance spy, which seems like a cool idea for a novel.
We don't get that novel here. Instead there's Oroonoko, brutally representing the slave trade. It has its fair share of inchoate racism, even when it's trying to avoid the more crude variants:
There's some other lesser prose items. Two plays are included, The Rover, which is Restoration comedy involving exiled royalists in Italy trying to get laid during Mardi Gras, and The Widow Ranter, concerning Bacon's Rebellion. The latter includes somewhat extraneous de rigueur romance plots even while the main story is a tragedy. Bacon presents as heroic, though his antagonists are Native Americans, on the one hand, and clownish colonial officials, on the other. The former play involves quite a bit of threatened ravishments. I suspect one part of that is a general misogyny. However the key to the rapes is class. We see this in a moment when the reveling exiled aristocrats have isolated one of the ladies of the cast and are essentially trying to decide who gets to rape her first. After she realizes who they are (it's during carnival, so everyone is generally disguised), she tells them that their friend, not present, will vouch for her. One replies that "I can soon discover whether she be of quality, or for your diversion" (231), which is about as explicit a disjunction between sacrosanct aristocrat and abusable commoner as we could want. The play itself has an over-quick resolution, leaving several of the key components on the table, such as the contest between a nun so randy she left her order and a seasoned courtesan who falls for one of the moronic aristocrats and laments that her jealousy has destroyed her reason (194), cf. Dante, and thus that he has taken her "virgin heart" (213), which is conceptually cool.
Some verse, mostly occasional, concludes the volume.
Recommended for those who will not justify the ingratitude of their forefathers, but finding there their inheritance, are resolved still to maintain it.
We don't get that novel here. Instead there's Oroonoko, brutally representing the slave trade. It has its fair share of inchoate racism, even when it's trying to avoid the more crude variants:
His nose was rising and Roman, instead of African and flat. His mouth, the finest shaped that could be seen; far from those great turned lips, which are so natural to the rest of the Negroes. The whole proportion and air of his face was so noble, and exactly formed, that, bating his colour, there could be nothing in nature more beautiful, agreeable, and handsome. (81)The story itself, held out as a piece of the origins of the novel in English, lacks formal cohesion. There's a local intrigue prior to the protagonist's abduction, but the link between that storyline and the later parts in Surinam are not patent.
There's some other lesser prose items. Two plays are included, The Rover, which is Restoration comedy involving exiled royalists in Italy trying to get laid during Mardi Gras, and The Widow Ranter, concerning Bacon's Rebellion. The latter includes somewhat extraneous de rigueur romance plots even while the main story is a tragedy. Bacon presents as heroic, though his antagonists are Native Americans, on the one hand, and clownish colonial officials, on the other. The former play involves quite a bit of threatened ravishments. I suspect one part of that is a general misogyny. However the key to the rapes is class. We see this in a moment when the reveling exiled aristocrats have isolated one of the ladies of the cast and are essentially trying to decide who gets to rape her first. After she realizes who they are (it's during carnival, so everyone is generally disguised), she tells them that their friend, not present, will vouch for her. One replies that "I can soon discover whether she be of quality, or for your diversion" (231), which is about as explicit a disjunction between sacrosanct aristocrat and abusable commoner as we could want. The play itself has an over-quick resolution, leaving several of the key components on the table, such as the contest between a nun so randy she left her order and a seasoned courtesan who falls for one of the moronic aristocrats and laments that her jealousy has destroyed her reason (194), cf. Dante, and thus that he has taken her "virgin heart" (213), which is conceptually cool.
Some verse, mostly occasional, concludes the volume.
Recommended for those who will not justify the ingratitude of their forefathers, but finding there their inheritance, are resolved still to maintain it.
December 17, 2020
I've wanted to read some Aphra Behn for a long time, and it's safe to say that this book was not what I was expecting. 'The Rover' was funny, and in fact could be perhaps paralleled to modern romantic comedies, but not the kind of play I'd watch by choice or that I'd call particularly morally edifying. I do agree with the general view that part I is better than part II - the characters were more engaging and the ending slightly more satisfying. 'Oronooko' was very interesting, and I'm looking forward to researching more into the British Empire at the time. While I don't think I have the same respect for Oronooko that the author seems to presume, and found some of the scenes frankly horrific, I was pleased to see some critique of slavery in this early text.
Read
March 2, 2022The Fair Jilt: I *think* this is satire but otherwise I have no idea what I read. It’s at least a change to see the woman ruining all of the men’s reputations for once.
Oronooko: Y I k e s.
Love Letters to a Gentleman: Besides the language, this could be written yesterday.
Poems: My favorite was “Epilogue.”
The Rover: every time something interesting was happening it was interrupted by someone trying to rape someone
The Widow Ranter: y i k e s
Oronooko: Y I k e s.
Love Letters to a Gentleman: Besides the language, this could be written yesterday.
Poems: My favorite was “Epilogue.”
The Rover: every time something interesting was happening it was interrupted by someone trying to rape someone
The Widow Ranter: y i k e s
January 8, 2021
my thoughts about this book are completely overshadowed by how much i wish oroonoko and imoinda had a happy ending together :(
September 2, 2013
It's hard to know where to come down on Behn. Her life and career were very interesting, but her determined monarchism and casual racism make her difficult to accept in a modern framework. I read her mostly from a historian's perspective, and each of the works collected here offers interesting commentaries on the important issues of her time, along with the era's peculiar sense of humor. If you aren't willing or prepared to do that kind of close reading, then value may be limited.
Oroonoko, the only story in here I read way back in high school, is a prime example of why it's very important to focus on context. On the surface, it's the story of a man who would rather die than remain enslaved. That man is treated as a heroic martyr, but others in the narrative are treated as though slavery were a perfectly natural state for them. A recurring theme from Behn is that some people are just better than hoi polloi, and the suggestion that African royalty is still royalty is about as egalitarian as you're going to get from her.
The most enjoyable parts of the book are the two plays, which are really quite funny, for all the time and culture that separates us from them. Really, jokes about drunken buffoons pretending to be respectable are kind of universal. Behn also does right by her fellow ladies in writing some fantastic female characters, though as usual she implies that their best qualities are exceptions rather than rules amongst women.
As for her poetry, I found it to be more of historical than emotional interest, but that's not really a problem for me.
Oroonoko, the only story in here I read way back in high school, is a prime example of why it's very important to focus on context. On the surface, it's the story of a man who would rather die than remain enslaved. That man is treated as a heroic martyr, but others in the narrative are treated as though slavery were a perfectly natural state for them. A recurring theme from Behn is that some people are just better than hoi polloi, and the suggestion that African royalty is still royalty is about as egalitarian as you're going to get from her.
The most enjoyable parts of the book are the two plays, which are really quite funny, for all the time and culture that separates us from them. Really, jokes about drunken buffoons pretending to be respectable are kind of universal. Behn also does right by her fellow ladies in writing some fantastic female characters, though as usual she implies that their best qualities are exceptions rather than rules amongst women.
As for her poetry, I found it to be more of historical than emotional interest, but that's not really a problem for me.
July 2, 2020
This was a really surprising read - I had read of Behn’s work in passing at university and had awareness of her as this rather exceptional person, trail blazing for women writers and frankly living an extraordinary life for a 17th century woman.
I came across her again as part of post-colonial reading as part of my post-grad with the Open University, but this is tHe first time I had taken down her collected works from my shelves and read in detail, and what an extraordinary collection of writing it is!?
It starts with a fairytale-esque story of The Fair Jilt. The fact that this is a story written in 1688 by a female author makes the central action of the narrative, in which the main female protagonist cries rape when the object of her affections spurns her advances, all the more shocking and surprising. It is a many layered tale with much to say on morality of the sexes and gender power. I just could get over how readable and accessible her writing is - kept having to remind myself that this was less than 100 years after Shakespeare.
I cannot say I enjoyed reading Oroonoko as the events that are told are so tragic - not just in the fate of the eponymous slave prince, but also for the window on a world that has been forever lost. The passages on the treatment of Oroonoko and Imoinda are incredibly painful to read, as is the harsh brutality of the indigenous tribes they encounter. There is so much to say in this text and I definitely feel I need to return and study it in more detail. I will definitely incorporate this as a companion text to my teaching of Othello going forward, I also see plenty of opportunities when teaching colonialism and post-colonialism, so many interesting comparative texts come to mind: Robinson Crusoe and Foe, Heart of Darkness, Mosquito Coast - it is an incredible rich text when compared with what comes afterwards. Also to put a black character as the moral heart of her story is incredibly brave, even if he is again punished by a world not ready for him to break out of the bounds of his circumstances.
Then the collection ends with another change of pace, form and intent with two plays that are witty, satirical, that look again at gender roles and power but in a way that is engaging to read and I bet even more fun to watch in stage.
What a writer, what range and intellect and experience. Aphra Behn definitely makes it into my dream dinner party list - what a set of tales and experiences she had and so far ahead of her time.
I came across her again as part of post-colonial reading as part of my post-grad with the Open University, but this is tHe first time I had taken down her collected works from my shelves and read in detail, and what an extraordinary collection of writing it is!?
It starts with a fairytale-esque story of The Fair Jilt. The fact that this is a story written in 1688 by a female author makes the central action of the narrative, in which the main female protagonist cries rape when the object of her affections spurns her advances, all the more shocking and surprising. It is a many layered tale with much to say on morality of the sexes and gender power. I just could get over how readable and accessible her writing is - kept having to remind myself that this was less than 100 years after Shakespeare.
I cannot say I enjoyed reading Oroonoko as the events that are told are so tragic - not just in the fate of the eponymous slave prince, but also for the window on a world that has been forever lost. The passages on the treatment of Oroonoko and Imoinda are incredibly painful to read, as is the harsh brutality of the indigenous tribes they encounter. There is so much to say in this text and I definitely feel I need to return and study it in more detail. I will definitely incorporate this as a companion text to my teaching of Othello going forward, I also see plenty of opportunities when teaching colonialism and post-colonialism, so many interesting comparative texts come to mind: Robinson Crusoe and Foe, Heart of Darkness, Mosquito Coast - it is an incredible rich text when compared with what comes afterwards. Also to put a black character as the moral heart of her story is incredibly brave, even if he is again punished by a world not ready for him to break out of the bounds of his circumstances.
Then the collection ends with another change of pace, form and intent with two plays that are witty, satirical, that look again at gender roles and power but in a way that is engaging to read and I bet even more fun to watch in stage.
What a writer, what range and intellect and experience. Aphra Behn definitely makes it into my dream dinner party list - what a set of tales and experiences she had and so far ahead of her time.
January 26, 2021
Keeping the same email for a long time is a useful archival tool. From searching my mail, I could see I bought this book in 2012, along with a collection of Tom Stoppard plays and ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore’, which I read right away; Daniel Deronda and The Reef, which I only got to in the last year; and Anne, Countess of Winchilsea’s poems, which I haven’t read yet. I feel like the connection there is the line ‘the lady’s not for burning’, yet I can’t remember why. I do know that Aphra Behn is one of the earliest female writers who was known to be such in her lifetime – according to Virginia Woolf she was the first woman to ever earn her living by her pen. Suffice to say I came to her with a high level of indulgence, none of which was left by the end.
Whether it’s a factor of her actual personality or the constraints of the time in which she was writing, but ho boy was Behn an extreme misogynist. The first story in this collection, ‘The Fair Jilt’, is rape apologia drivel. The second, ‘Oroonoko’, is rank orientalism and otherisation of the highest order. She happily invokes the ‘exceptional woman’ and ‘exceptional POC’ clauses to explain why this particular woman or this particular black man is A-OK, but the rest can be cast to the outer darkness for all she cares. The Rover is a play starring a serial rapist, in which almost all of the plotlines revolve around rape, and the ‘happy’ ending involves the heroine willingly allying herself to the rapist. The Widow Ranter wasn’t about the Widow Ranter at all, except peripherally. Instead, it focuses on the misadventures of some dude called Bacon who invokes the Exceptional POC Clause to explain why he loves the Indian Queen (whom he accidentally kills while, you know, MAKING WAR ON HER PEOPLE).
The poetry is pretty dull, but I guess not overtly offensive to a modern sensibility? Which is damning with nearly-invisible praise.
About the only thing she’s consistently sharp on is religious critique. And even that dims a little when you read Janet Todd’s introduction and realise every ounce of religious scepticism is balanced against ten tonnes of ‘but the divine right of kings, actually’.
Quotes to back up my disgust follow.
The Fair Jilt
“[…] everyone knew that Prince Tarquin was the intended murderer of Alcidiana; and not one but had a real sorrow and compassion for him.”
I’M SORRY WHAT
“[…] now repented from the bottom of their hearts, their having any hand in the ruin of so gallant a man; especially, since they knew the lady was not hurt.”
Wow, the ‘but what about their brilliant careers [that they ruined by raping someone]’ defense has a REALLY long precedent.
Oroonoko
“[…] religion would here but destroy that tranquillity they possess by ignorance, and laws would but teach them to take offence, of which they know have no notion.”
Fair. As is:
“Oroonoko then replied that he was very sorry to hear that the captain pretended to the knowledge and worship of any gods who had taught him no better principles, than not to credit as he would be credited […]”
and
‘”[…] they wanted only but to be whipped into the knowledge of the Christian gods to be the vilest of all creeping things, to learn to worship such deities as had not the power to make them just, brave, or honest.”
Now on to the contrasting 'slavery is fine unless you are a special person' stance, which sounds! Let's say! Fake!
Nothing screams romance like: “So that having made his first compliments, and presented her with a hundred and fifty slaves in fetters […]”
In the course of events, Oroonoko finds himself on a plantation with many people he – in his role as their ruler - had personally sold into slavery.
“And kissing his feet, paid him even divine homage.”
Guys? Guys. You should of ET HIM.
Love Letters to a Gentleman
“’Tis I was first in friendship, and shall be last in constancy.”
Oh man, but she IS good on being the ‘one that loves longest, when all hope is gone’. I suspect that happened to her more than once.
The Rover
“Angellica: […] when a lady is proposed to you for a wife, you never ask, how fair – discreet – or virtuous she is; but what’s her fortune – which if but small, you cry – she will not do my business – and basely leave her, though she languish for you – say, is this not as poor?”
The sex worker is the only one with a working moral compass.
“Hellena: Like me! I don’t intend that he that likes me shall have me, but he that I like […]”
This must have been revolutionary, when you consider it wasn’t until women’s lib that society realised all women had sex drives (as opposed to just a few of the ‘fallen’ ones, and never the ‘Whores with a Heart of Gold’). I’ve said before in defense of Jo March’s and Fanny Price’s (debatably sub-par) romantic choices that the important thing was they got what they wanted, not what the reader wanted for them. In Hellena’s case that does still hold … unfortunately she didn’t marry a father-figure or a spineless toad, but an out-and-out rapist who can’t even keep his dick in his pants for a single night.
“Willmore: Wicked! – egad child, a judge were he young and vigorous, and saw those eyes of thine, would know ‘twas they gave the first blow – the first provocation – […]”
Good to know this also has a long precedent. And one that is, most unfortunately, still extant.
The Widow Ranter
The only good thing about this play is this observation:
“Timorous: Well, well, that’s all one – gadzoors, if every man that passed for valiant in a battle were to give an account how he gained his reputation, the world would be but thinly stocked with heroes.”
Poems
Love Armed:
“Love in fantastic triumph sat,
Whilst bleeding hearts around him flowed,
For whom fresh pains he did create,
And strange tyrannic power he showed,
From thy bright eyes he took his fire,
Which round about, in sport he hurled;
But ‘twas from mine, he took desire,
Enough to undo the amorous world.
From me he took his sighs and tears,
Form thee his pride and cruelty;
From me his languishments and fears,
And every killing dart from thee;
Thus thou and I, the god have armed,
And set him up a deity;
But my poor heart alone is harmed,
While thine the victor is, and free.”
I reproduce this in full because it is, without near competition, the best thing in this collection. I’m sure being ghosted as many times as Aphra Behn clearly was wasn’t enjoyable for her, but that is one of the most accurate depictions of an unequal distribution of affection I’ve ever read.
From On Desire:
“Oh! mischievous usuper of my peace;
Oh! soft intruder on my solitude,
Charming disturber of my ease,
That hast my nobler fate pursued,
And all the glories of my life subdued.
Thou haunt’st my inconvenient hours;
The business of the day, nor silence of the night,
That should to cares and sleep invite,
Can bid defiance to thy conquering powers.”
This is also pretty good on ‘the throes of a new crush’.
In conclusion I’m not sure if Behn didn’t do more harm than good in her alignment with the cause of misogyny. And with all my ranting I forgot to mention how deeply dull is the journalistic, 'let's shove in every random detail' style of storytelling that preceded the formalisation of the novel form as we know it. This progenitor died for a reason.
Whether it’s a factor of her actual personality or the constraints of the time in which she was writing, but ho boy was Behn an extreme misogynist. The first story in this collection, ‘The Fair Jilt’, is rape apologia drivel. The second, ‘Oroonoko’, is rank orientalism and otherisation of the highest order. She happily invokes the ‘exceptional woman’ and ‘exceptional POC’ clauses to explain why this particular woman or this particular black man is A-OK, but the rest can be cast to the outer darkness for all she cares. The Rover is a play starring a serial rapist, in which almost all of the plotlines revolve around rape, and the ‘happy’ ending involves the heroine willingly allying herself to the rapist. The Widow Ranter wasn’t about the Widow Ranter at all, except peripherally. Instead, it focuses on the misadventures of some dude called Bacon who invokes the Exceptional POC Clause to explain why he loves the Indian Queen (whom he accidentally kills while, you know, MAKING WAR ON HER PEOPLE).
The poetry is pretty dull, but I guess not overtly offensive to a modern sensibility? Which is damning with nearly-invisible praise.
About the only thing she’s consistently sharp on is religious critique. And even that dims a little when you read Janet Todd’s introduction and realise every ounce of religious scepticism is balanced against ten tonnes of ‘but the divine right of kings, actually’.
Quotes to back up my disgust follow.
The Fair Jilt
“[…] everyone knew that Prince Tarquin was the intended murderer of Alcidiana; and not one but had a real sorrow and compassion for him.”
I’M SORRY WHAT
“[…] now repented from the bottom of their hearts, their having any hand in the ruin of so gallant a man; especially, since they knew the lady was not hurt.”
Wow, the ‘but what about their brilliant careers [that they ruined by raping someone]’ defense has a REALLY long precedent.
Oroonoko
“[…] religion would here but destroy that tranquillity they possess by ignorance, and laws would but teach them to take offence, of which they know have no notion.”
Fair. As is:
“Oroonoko then replied that he was very sorry to hear that the captain pretended to the knowledge and worship of any gods who had taught him no better principles, than not to credit as he would be credited […]”
and
‘”[…] they wanted only but to be whipped into the knowledge of the Christian gods to be the vilest of all creeping things, to learn to worship such deities as had not the power to make them just, brave, or honest.”
Now on to the contrasting 'slavery is fine unless you are a special person' stance, which sounds! Let's say! Fake!
Nothing screams romance like: “So that having made his first compliments, and presented her with a hundred and fifty slaves in fetters […]”
In the course of events, Oroonoko finds himself on a plantation with many people he – in his role as their ruler - had personally sold into slavery.
“And kissing his feet, paid him even divine homage.”
Guys? Guys. You should of ET HIM.
Love Letters to a Gentleman
“’Tis I was first in friendship, and shall be last in constancy.”
Oh man, but she IS good on being the ‘one that loves longest, when all hope is gone’. I suspect that happened to her more than once.
The Rover
“Angellica: […] when a lady is proposed to you for a wife, you never ask, how fair – discreet – or virtuous she is; but what’s her fortune – which if but small, you cry – she will not do my business – and basely leave her, though she languish for you – say, is this not as poor?”
The sex worker is the only one with a working moral compass.
“Hellena: Like me! I don’t intend that he that likes me shall have me, but he that I like […]”
This must have been revolutionary, when you consider it wasn’t until women’s lib that society realised all women had sex drives (as opposed to just a few of the ‘fallen’ ones, and never the ‘Whores with a Heart of Gold’). I’ve said before in defense of Jo March’s and Fanny Price’s (debatably sub-par) romantic choices that the important thing was they got what they wanted, not what the reader wanted for them. In Hellena’s case that does still hold … unfortunately she didn’t marry a father-figure or a spineless toad, but an out-and-out rapist who can’t even keep his dick in his pants for a single night.
“Willmore: Wicked! – egad child, a judge were he young and vigorous, and saw those eyes of thine, would know ‘twas they gave the first blow – the first provocation – […]”
Good to know this also has a long precedent. And one that is, most unfortunately, still extant.
The Widow Ranter
The only good thing about this play is this observation:
“Timorous: Well, well, that’s all one – gadzoors, if every man that passed for valiant in a battle were to give an account how he gained his reputation, the world would be but thinly stocked with heroes.”
Poems
Love Armed:
“Love in fantastic triumph sat,
Whilst bleeding hearts around him flowed,
For whom fresh pains he did create,
And strange tyrannic power he showed,
From thy bright eyes he took his fire,
Which round about, in sport he hurled;
But ‘twas from mine, he took desire,
Enough to undo the amorous world.
From me he took his sighs and tears,
Form thee his pride and cruelty;
From me his languishments and fears,
And every killing dart from thee;
Thus thou and I, the god have armed,
And set him up a deity;
But my poor heart alone is harmed,
While thine the victor is, and free.”
I reproduce this in full because it is, without near competition, the best thing in this collection. I’m sure being ghosted as many times as Aphra Behn clearly was wasn’t enjoyable for her, but that is one of the most accurate depictions of an unequal distribution of affection I’ve ever read.
From On Desire:
“Oh! mischievous usuper of my peace;
Oh! soft intruder on my solitude,
Charming disturber of my ease,
That hast my nobler fate pursued,
And all the glories of my life subdued.
Thou haunt’st my inconvenient hours;
The business of the day, nor silence of the night,
That should to cares and sleep invite,
Can bid defiance to thy conquering powers.”
This is also pretty good on ‘the throes of a new crush’.
In conclusion I’m not sure if Behn didn’t do more harm than good in her alignment with the cause of misogyny. And with all my ranting I forgot to mention how deeply dull is the journalistic, 'let's shove in every random detail' style of storytelling that preceded the formalisation of the novel form as we know it. This progenitor died for a reason.
May 19, 2023
I didn't pay too much close attention to the plays but there is a really impressive range across the selection here - Behn was basically a pioneer in every genre in the restoration. I don't think the novels add up to much, and the plays are stilted and formal in a way that pre-interregnum drama isn't (suggesting to me, perhaps unfairly, that it took a while for drama to pick itself back up to Elizabethan heights after that long puritan hiatus) but it's all very interesting and animated stuff.
The poems are the best thing here imo: that shockingly bawdy style that Rochester etc kicked off in the Restoration is here in spades, with the added bonus that the perspective is entirely female. "The Disappointment" is particularly hilarious, while "Song on Her Loving Two Equally" and "To the Fair Clarinda" talk about female desire with the kind of honesty and openness which might not be found again until the twentieth century?
The poems are the best thing here imo: that shockingly bawdy style that Rochester etc kicked off in the Restoration is here in spades, with the added bonus that the perspective is entirely female. "The Disappointment" is particularly hilarious, while "Song on Her Loving Two Equally" and "To the Fair Clarinda" talk about female desire with the kind of honesty and openness which might not be found again until the twentieth century?
August 26, 2017
I enjoyed the short stories in this but I really struggled with the plays and could not get into them at all. The Fair Jilt was an ok story but the masterpiece is of this book is Oroonoko. A story about a Prince who is kidnapped and sold as a slave and eventually has to kill the love of his life, his unborn child and lose his own life in order to obtain freedom. This is an captivating story and one I would recommend.
However, I then moved on to the plays and they did not hold my interest and I stopped reading them properly. There was also some poetry and love letters that were ok.
Aphra Behn was an amazing woman for her time and this is the only work of hers that I have read so was hoping for better things than the plays had to offer. However, I really did enjoy the short stories so would be interesting in reading more of her work.
However, I then moved on to the plays and they did not hold my interest and I stopped reading them properly. There was also some poetry and love letters that were ok.
Aphra Behn was an amazing woman for her time and this is the only work of hers that I have read so was hoping for better things than the plays had to offer. However, I really did enjoy the short stories so would be interesting in reading more of her work.
July 19, 2017
read for Oroonoko for westridge alum book club, Behn as the ancestor to the woman novelist;
but then had to read the other novels, the plays, the poems, to get a better feel for this author. felt that an exploration of english politics of the times vastly improved the understanding of this writer's issues and biases.
but then had to read the other novels, the plays, the poems, to get a better feel for this author. felt that an exploration of english politics of the times vastly improved the understanding of this writer's issues and biases.
December 13, 2024
I've read Oroonoko several times and each time I find it interesting enough to read it. New to me, I read The Rover and really enjoyed how playful and witty it was
August 19, 2023
Girlboss.
November 27, 2023
Can you name a 17th century British female fictional prose writer? What about a 17th century British female poet? Or a 17th century British female dramatist? If you are reading this review, then you probably know the name of at least one person – Aphra Behn.
Nonetheless Behn is not an especially well-known writer today, even in spite of the predominance of feminism in the Eng Lit academies of British universities. Here we have a writer who was mentioned by Virginia Woolf.
Here we have a woman who dabbled in all the literary mediums of her time. A woman who wrote bawdy Restoration comedies, love poems, prose works that might count as Britain’s first novels (at a pinch), and fiction that discussed slavery and colonialism. Yet she is not remembered as well as she might be. What went wrong?
The Penguin Classics edition offers a few samples of Behn’s work, but she did write much more than this. She was not exactly a hack writer. If she was, then so was Shakespeare, who probably wrote at a similar pace. Some of Behn’s works did rely heavily on other sources, but then so did Shakespeare’s. I guess we must look a little deeper at what Behn wrote.
This volume begins with Behn’s fascinating prose works. ‘The Fair Jilt’ is a short prose work, essentially an extended short story or brief novella. It is supposedly based on incidents that Behn saw herself, but like most of Behn’s claims to factual accuracy, we should not take this seriously. She was a writer, and her works are fiction, however allied they might be to some basis in reality.
We begin in a convent. As so often in Behn’s work, religion does not amount to much, and would-be nuns are just as ready to be debauched as any Restoration lady. Miranda is part of an order that takes temporary vows. She becomes infatuated with a prince who has taken monastic vows. When he rejects her, she accuses him of rape, and he is thrown in prison.
Thus begins a life of deceit for Miranda, who pursues different men, and manipulates them into trying to murder her sister, Alcidiana. Miranda also manages to involve Prince Tarquin in her murderous schemes. He is arrested, but generates much public sympathy.
This is sensationalist stuff, and not great literature, but it has certain fascinating elements. A male writer would have been more misogynistic and stressed Miranda’s evil. Behn does not gloss over this, but does not over-emphasise it either. Instead Behn emphasises Miranda’s allure to all men. Only the prince resists her, and it is obvious that if it was not for his foolish monastic vows, he would have happily slept with her.
More sympathy is generated for Tarquin as a victim than for Miranda. Nonetheless the story ends with both being pardoned, so Miranda essentially gets away with it, albeit with a convenient repentance to ease the minds of the audience.
Oroonooo is Behn’s best-known prose work, and one of her better works in general. I am not entirely sure that it holds up as an early abolitionist work, but the reader naturally cannot help reading more into it than Behn may have intended.
The titular character is an African prince who is portrayed as noble and heroic. His tribe do not lie so they are easily duped into becoming slaves. Sadly there will be no liberation for Oroonoko or his bride Imoinda. Despite some help from well-meaning white people, he is doomed to an unpleasant fate.
While Oroonoko reads like an indictment of the slave trade, it is a little more complex than that. Oroonoko is himself in favour of the slavery of others. Indeed Behn is more indignant about his position as a royal prince being abused. This reflects the fact that Behn was a staunch Royalist, and deplored the overthrow of James II by William of Orange. It is British politics that inform Oroonoko, not African ones.
Still the book does generate sympathy for the slaves, and it is interesting in that it portrays Christians as the villains. By contrast Behn sees the Africans as living in a state of prelapsarian innocence. This is an absurd stereotype of course. Behn also has little sympathy for Native Americans who fight the white colonialists.
We can detect certain patterns here in Behn. She discusses colonial issues, albeit as someone who travelled in the area and mixed with the colonists. She is cynical about organised religion, and democratic forms of government. She is more sympathetic towards female characters than many of her male counterpoints.
In this case Imoinda is seen as beautiful and brave, not just a passive heroine. Notably Miranda’s sister was not a goody-two-shoes either, but a woman with her faults. The bad women are not too evil, and the good women are not too bland here.
The work might count as an early novel, preceding Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Pamela or Joseph Andrews, some early books that are claimed as Britain’s first novels. I think it is a little too short to count as a novel, but it does tell a long story with a coherent narrative that has a clear beginning, middle and end.
‘Love Letters to a Gentleman’ is less interesting here. Perhaps Behn took letters she had herself written to a male she admired. As it is, the letters are somewhat overblown and overwritten, making it a chore to read them.
Next we move on to the plays, two of which are included here. The Rover is Behn’s most famous work. This is a bawdy Restoration comedy with strong farcical elements. Women’s issues are prominent here, with two Neapolitan sisters having their fates determined by men, their brother and father.
Florinda is expected to marry either Don Vincentio or Don Pedro, but she wants to marry an English colonel, Belville instead. Her sister Helena is being forced into becoming a nun, but like Miranda she is having none of it, and is determined to have some experiences with men.
The main plot is comparatively conventional since we know that Florinda will have her way in the end. The most intriguing wrinkle is that Florinda is nearly sexually assaulted by two other male characters while she participates in intrigues. This is a dangerous world for women.
Helena becomes embroiled with Willmore, the rover of the title. He is a rover in that he is a naval captain, but also in his attitude towards women. Throughout the play Willmore is caught between Helen and Angellica Bianca, a well-known courtesan.
Which one does Willmore want? Well, he is very much a believer in the principle of loving the one you’re with. He woos whatever woman is in front of him. Curiously Behn seems to like this kind of man, and the story does not treat him any the worse for being so fickle.
Still this is essentially a play in which the women take the lead, and the men follow. There is no judgement against any of the three leading female characters, even though two of them are rivals. Behn’s own sex life was liberated enough for her not to judge anyone.
The Widow Ranter was released after Behn’s death, and perhaps more work might have been done on it if she had lived. It is a tragicomedy that uses another colonial setting, this time in America. Once more native Americans constitute the threat, but there is a romance between the Queen of the tribe and the British merchant adventurer, Nathaniel Bacon.
Behn satirises the administrators of the colony, and so comes close to satirising the whole idea of colonialism. Nonetheless she also supports Bacon’s doomed adventures, and he is the hero of the play, even though he is undermining the British and attacking the ‘Indians’.
Once more I think Behn is thinking of British politics, and the inept governing body in the region are seen to be corrupt and murderous, not a good representation of a state without a strong leader, i.e. a king. There is a religious humbug amidst the cracked actors too.
Beyond that we are again drawn to the female characters. The Queen is an interesting figure, torn between her duty to her people and her husband, and her strong sexual attraction to Bacon. There is also the Widow Tranter, a feisty woman who is willing to literally fight in battle in order to secure the man she wants.
Finally the book ends with samples of Behn’s poetry. Behn is not a great poet. She is inclined to the over-familiar clichés and overwritten style of the time. The poems are notable for their eroticism, and the one that will most attract attention is ‘The Disappointment’ which deals with male sexual dysfunction in an amusing way that is focused as much on the woman’s disappointment as the man’s.
Overall I would not say that Behn is a great writer. None of these works are among the most memorable in their field. The style is sometime artificially elevated, and sometimes crude. The comedies are about sex, and lack any higher themes. Oroonoko ends with some nasty violence.
Having said that, it is nice to see a woman handling subject matter normally reserved for male writers of the time. While more female authors would follow, their books would be far more delicate and genteel, avoiding such material. We would have to wait for the twentieth-century to find women willing to tackle sex and violence with this level of frankness.
I can also admire Aphra Behn as a pioneer. At a time when literature was dominated by men, she made a name for herself and she established the path down which other women writers could follow. The pioneers are not always the best people in their field, but they are certainly very important.
Nonetheless Behn is not an especially well-known writer today, even in spite of the predominance of feminism in the Eng Lit academies of British universities. Here we have a writer who was mentioned by Virginia Woolf.
Here we have a woman who dabbled in all the literary mediums of her time. A woman who wrote bawdy Restoration comedies, love poems, prose works that might count as Britain’s first novels (at a pinch), and fiction that discussed slavery and colonialism. Yet she is not remembered as well as she might be. What went wrong?
The Penguin Classics edition offers a few samples of Behn’s work, but she did write much more than this. She was not exactly a hack writer. If she was, then so was Shakespeare, who probably wrote at a similar pace. Some of Behn’s works did rely heavily on other sources, but then so did Shakespeare’s. I guess we must look a little deeper at what Behn wrote.
This volume begins with Behn’s fascinating prose works. ‘The Fair Jilt’ is a short prose work, essentially an extended short story or brief novella. It is supposedly based on incidents that Behn saw herself, but like most of Behn’s claims to factual accuracy, we should not take this seriously. She was a writer, and her works are fiction, however allied they might be to some basis in reality.
We begin in a convent. As so often in Behn’s work, religion does not amount to much, and would-be nuns are just as ready to be debauched as any Restoration lady. Miranda is part of an order that takes temporary vows. She becomes infatuated with a prince who has taken monastic vows. When he rejects her, she accuses him of rape, and he is thrown in prison.
Thus begins a life of deceit for Miranda, who pursues different men, and manipulates them into trying to murder her sister, Alcidiana. Miranda also manages to involve Prince Tarquin in her murderous schemes. He is arrested, but generates much public sympathy.
This is sensationalist stuff, and not great literature, but it has certain fascinating elements. A male writer would have been more misogynistic and stressed Miranda’s evil. Behn does not gloss over this, but does not over-emphasise it either. Instead Behn emphasises Miranda’s allure to all men. Only the prince resists her, and it is obvious that if it was not for his foolish monastic vows, he would have happily slept with her.
More sympathy is generated for Tarquin as a victim than for Miranda. Nonetheless the story ends with both being pardoned, so Miranda essentially gets away with it, albeit with a convenient repentance to ease the minds of the audience.
Oroonooo is Behn’s best-known prose work, and one of her better works in general. I am not entirely sure that it holds up as an early abolitionist work, but the reader naturally cannot help reading more into it than Behn may have intended.
The titular character is an African prince who is portrayed as noble and heroic. His tribe do not lie so they are easily duped into becoming slaves. Sadly there will be no liberation for Oroonoko or his bride Imoinda. Despite some help from well-meaning white people, he is doomed to an unpleasant fate.
While Oroonoko reads like an indictment of the slave trade, it is a little more complex than that. Oroonoko is himself in favour of the slavery of others. Indeed Behn is more indignant about his position as a royal prince being abused. This reflects the fact that Behn was a staunch Royalist, and deplored the overthrow of James II by William of Orange. It is British politics that inform Oroonoko, not African ones.
Still the book does generate sympathy for the slaves, and it is interesting in that it portrays Christians as the villains. By contrast Behn sees the Africans as living in a state of prelapsarian innocence. This is an absurd stereotype of course. Behn also has little sympathy for Native Americans who fight the white colonialists.
We can detect certain patterns here in Behn. She discusses colonial issues, albeit as someone who travelled in the area and mixed with the colonists. She is cynical about organised religion, and democratic forms of government. She is more sympathetic towards female characters than many of her male counterpoints.
In this case Imoinda is seen as beautiful and brave, not just a passive heroine. Notably Miranda’s sister was not a goody-two-shoes either, but a woman with her faults. The bad women are not too evil, and the good women are not too bland here.
The work might count as an early novel, preceding Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Pamela or Joseph Andrews, some early books that are claimed as Britain’s first novels. I think it is a little too short to count as a novel, but it does tell a long story with a coherent narrative that has a clear beginning, middle and end.
‘Love Letters to a Gentleman’ is less interesting here. Perhaps Behn took letters she had herself written to a male she admired. As it is, the letters are somewhat overblown and overwritten, making it a chore to read them.
Next we move on to the plays, two of which are included here. The Rover is Behn’s most famous work. This is a bawdy Restoration comedy with strong farcical elements. Women’s issues are prominent here, with two Neapolitan sisters having their fates determined by men, their brother and father.
Florinda is expected to marry either Don Vincentio or Don Pedro, but she wants to marry an English colonel, Belville instead. Her sister Helena is being forced into becoming a nun, but like Miranda she is having none of it, and is determined to have some experiences with men.
The main plot is comparatively conventional since we know that Florinda will have her way in the end. The most intriguing wrinkle is that Florinda is nearly sexually assaulted by two other male characters while she participates in intrigues. This is a dangerous world for women.
Helena becomes embroiled with Willmore, the rover of the title. He is a rover in that he is a naval captain, but also in his attitude towards women. Throughout the play Willmore is caught between Helen and Angellica Bianca, a well-known courtesan.
Which one does Willmore want? Well, he is very much a believer in the principle of loving the one you’re with. He woos whatever woman is in front of him. Curiously Behn seems to like this kind of man, and the story does not treat him any the worse for being so fickle.
Still this is essentially a play in which the women take the lead, and the men follow. There is no judgement against any of the three leading female characters, even though two of them are rivals. Behn’s own sex life was liberated enough for her not to judge anyone.
The Widow Ranter was released after Behn’s death, and perhaps more work might have been done on it if she had lived. It is a tragicomedy that uses another colonial setting, this time in America. Once more native Americans constitute the threat, but there is a romance between the Queen of the tribe and the British merchant adventurer, Nathaniel Bacon.
Behn satirises the administrators of the colony, and so comes close to satirising the whole idea of colonialism. Nonetheless she also supports Bacon’s doomed adventures, and he is the hero of the play, even though he is undermining the British and attacking the ‘Indians’.
Once more I think Behn is thinking of British politics, and the inept governing body in the region are seen to be corrupt and murderous, not a good representation of a state without a strong leader, i.e. a king. There is a religious humbug amidst the cracked actors too.
Beyond that we are again drawn to the female characters. The Queen is an interesting figure, torn between her duty to her people and her husband, and her strong sexual attraction to Bacon. There is also the Widow Tranter, a feisty woman who is willing to literally fight in battle in order to secure the man she wants.
Finally the book ends with samples of Behn’s poetry. Behn is not a great poet. She is inclined to the over-familiar clichés and overwritten style of the time. The poems are notable for their eroticism, and the one that will most attract attention is ‘The Disappointment’ which deals with male sexual dysfunction in an amusing way that is focused as much on the woman’s disappointment as the man’s.
Overall I would not say that Behn is a great writer. None of these works are among the most memorable in their field. The style is sometime artificially elevated, and sometimes crude. The comedies are about sex, and lack any higher themes. Oroonoko ends with some nasty violence.
Having said that, it is nice to see a woman handling subject matter normally reserved for male writers of the time. While more female authors would follow, their books would be far more delicate and genteel, avoiding such material. We would have to wait for the twentieth-century to find women willing to tackle sex and violence with this level of frankness.
I can also admire Aphra Behn as a pioneer. At a time when literature was dominated by men, she made a name for herself and she established the path down which other women writers could follow. The pioneers are not always the best people in their field, but they are certainly very important.
May 15, 2024
reread here n there before my exam tmrw
January 27, 2011
My class didn't actually read this entire work - we read "The Rover" and "The Fair Jilt." (a play and a short story, respectively)
"The Fair Jilt" was sort of boring and also irritating, because it's about a woman who falls in love with a monk (who's really a banished prince who got banished because of romantic fuck-ups) and when he rejects her advances she accuses him of raping her. He gets sent to prison to await execution, she goes on with her life, but at least karma comes around and bites her in the ass eventually.
I liked "The Rover" a lot more, and I can't really do it justice except by quoting the plot synopsis on the back of the book: "The Rover centers on the dissolute Cavalier Willmore, and the attempts of two spirited women - Angellica Bianca, a courtesan, and Hellena, a cross-dressing virgin - to woo him."
It reminded me of one of Shakespeare's lighter comedies - romantic shenanigans and cross-dressing aplenty - but more R-rated. There's a courtesan and a prostitute, and not one but two scenes where the heroine almost gets raped. But the whole play is still oddly hilarious, and I wonder what it would look like presented on stage.
Read for: Women in Early British Literature
UPDATE:
Thanks to my Colonial Imagination class, I recently read Oroonoko as well. It's Behn's most famous work, and rightly so. Her story about an African prince who get fucked over by life over and over is sad, beautiful, well-written, and liberally sprinkled with Behn's white privilege perspective. The best example of this is when Oroonoko gets sold into slavery and put on a boat to make the infamous Middle Passage, the route that the slave ships took from Africa to South America. It was a horrendous trip, made under almost unbearable conditions, but Behn merely says that the voyage was "tedious" and skips right ahead to when we land in South America. Whoops.
"The Fair Jilt" was sort of boring and also irritating, because it's about a woman who falls in love with a monk (who's really a banished prince who got banished because of romantic fuck-ups) and when he rejects her advances she accuses him of raping her. He gets sent to prison to await execution, she goes on with her life, but at least karma comes around and bites her in the ass eventually.
I liked "The Rover" a lot more, and I can't really do it justice except by quoting the plot synopsis on the back of the book: "The Rover centers on the dissolute Cavalier Willmore, and the attempts of two spirited women - Angellica Bianca, a courtesan, and Hellena, a cross-dressing virgin - to woo him."
It reminded me of one of Shakespeare's lighter comedies - romantic shenanigans and cross-dressing aplenty - but more R-rated. There's a courtesan and a prostitute, and not one but two scenes where the heroine almost gets raped. But the whole play is still oddly hilarious, and I wonder what it would look like presented on stage.
Read for: Women in Early British Literature
UPDATE:
Thanks to my Colonial Imagination class, I recently read Oroonoko as well. It's Behn's most famous work, and rightly so. Her story about an African prince who get fucked over by life over and over is sad, beautiful, well-written, and liberally sprinkled with Behn's white privilege perspective. The best example of this is when Oroonoko gets sold into slavery and put on a boat to make the infamous Middle Passage, the route that the slave ships took from Africa to South America. It was a horrendous trip, made under almost unbearable conditions, but Behn merely says that the voyage was "tedious" and skips right ahead to when we land in South America. Whoops.
March 1, 2015
Finally. I read seven other books during the time it took me to finish this one! Jesus. Anyway. I'll be writing a full review for The Classics Club soon, but just for now, it's worth noting: this book is super, super racist. It was written in 1688 or thereabouts, so that is sort of par for the course, but it's racist in some pretty spectacular ways--it's not "all black people are gross and bestial" so much as it is "This one African prince was so perfect and amazing, no one could figure out how he could have grown up like this, and then they realized that his tutor was European, which explains everything. Except for the fact that this amazing African prince also had completely European features, which only goes to show how amazing he really was." That kind of racist. The kind that makes you go "WHAT. SERIOUSLY."
I mean, Aphra Behn may have been the first woman in English literary history to earn her living by her pen, but she wasn't no saint, is all I'm saying.
I mean, Aphra Behn may have been the first woman in English literary history to earn her living by her pen, but she wasn't no saint, is all I'm saying.
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February 6, 2021📚 Oroonoko ya da Asil Köle
✒ Aphra Behn (1640-1689)
✒ Çeviri: Güneş Soybilen
📚 Yitik Ülke Yay /92 s.
✍📚DİPÇE :
Wirginia Wolf, Behn için der ki:
"Bütün kadınların birleşerek Aphra Behn'in mezarına çiçek bırakması gerekir, zira kadınlara inandıkları şeyi söyleme hakkını kazandıran odur." Çünkü Behn, erken dönem İngiliz edebiyatında çıkış yapan bir kadın yazardır.17.yüzyıl tabularını yıkmış, yazarlığı meslek olarak seçmiştir.1666 yılında da 2.Hollanda İngiltere savaşında casusluk yapmış yine de yaşadığı sürede kaderin çok da gülümsediği bir kadın olamamıştır.Oroonoko dilimize çevrilen tek eseridir.Olay köle ticareti yapılan günümüzdeki Gana' da ( Coramantien) geçmektedir.Oroonoko soylu biridir bilişsel ve fiziksel bakımdan muazzam bir yapıda ve görünümdedir. İmoinda ise tarifsiz güzellikte bir siyahidir aralarındaki kutsal aşkın ilk tehdidi Oroonko'nun yüz yaşındaki kral dedesidir ve dede , torununun aşık olduğu güzel kadına tutkuyla el koyar.Bundan sonra törelerin ve beyaz adamın dahliyle olaylara kaderin de kıskançlığı eklenir...
Olaylar ilahi bakış açısıyla anlatılmıştır.Yazarın araya sıkça girdiğini ve bazı hususlarda okuru yönlendirdiğini görürüz. Yazar, olaylara bizzat şahit olduğunu, bir kısmını da aile yakınlarından dinlediğini belirterek olayın gerçeklik boyutunu vurgular.Eser bir prensin yaşam hikayesi gibi görünse de köle ticaretinin doğal karşılandığı bir zamanın panoramasıdır.
Yine de bu romana hakim duygu benim için; eski düşmanın dost olamayacağı, ihanetin bir kere bulaştığı yerde dürüstlüğün asla yeşermeyeceğidir.
Dönemi göz önünde bulundurularak okunduğunda başarılı bir romandır.
Romanda yazarın her ne kadar ırkçılık karşıtı söylemleri olsa da ve eserini siyahilere yakın bir gözlemde yazsa da bir yapaylık sezdim.Kitabı okuyan varsa bu konudaki düşüncelerini merak ediyorum.
1001 kitap listesinde olduğunu da belirterek özellikle benim gibi erken dönem eserlere ilgi duyanlara tavsiye ederim.Esen kalın .
✒ Aphra Behn (1640-1689)
✒ Çeviri: Güneş Soybilen
📚 Yitik Ülke Yay /92 s.
✍📚DİPÇE :
Wirginia Wolf, Behn için der ki:
"Bütün kadınların birleşerek Aphra Behn'in mezarına çiçek bırakması gerekir, zira kadınlara inandıkları şeyi söyleme hakkını kazandıran odur." Çünkü Behn, erken dönem İngiliz edebiyatında çıkış yapan bir kadın yazardır.17.yüzyıl tabularını yıkmış, yazarlığı meslek olarak seçmiştir.1666 yılında da 2.Hollanda İngiltere savaşında casusluk yapmış yine de yaşadığı sürede kaderin çok da gülümsediği bir kadın olamamıştır.Oroonoko dilimize çevrilen tek eseridir.Olay köle ticareti yapılan günümüzdeki Gana' da ( Coramantien) geçmektedir.Oroonoko soylu biridir bilişsel ve fiziksel bakımdan muazzam bir yapıda ve görünümdedir. İmoinda ise tarifsiz güzellikte bir siyahidir aralarındaki kutsal aşkın ilk tehdidi Oroonko'nun yüz yaşındaki kral dedesidir ve dede , torununun aşık olduğu güzel kadına tutkuyla el koyar.Bundan sonra törelerin ve beyaz adamın dahliyle olaylara kaderin de kıskançlığı eklenir...
Olaylar ilahi bakış açısıyla anlatılmıştır.Yazarın araya sıkça girdiğini ve bazı hususlarda okuru yönlendirdiğini görürüz. Yazar, olaylara bizzat şahit olduğunu, bir kısmını da aile yakınlarından dinlediğini belirterek olayın gerçeklik boyutunu vurgular.Eser bir prensin yaşam hikayesi gibi görünse de köle ticaretinin doğal karşılandığı bir zamanın panoramasıdır.
Yine de bu romana hakim duygu benim için; eski düşmanın dost olamayacağı, ihanetin bir kere bulaştığı yerde dürüstlüğün asla yeşermeyeceğidir.
Dönemi göz önünde bulundurularak okunduğunda başarılı bir romandır.
Romanda yazarın her ne kadar ırkçılık karşıtı söylemleri olsa da ve eserini siyahilere yakın bir gözlemde yazsa da bir yapaylık sezdim.Kitabı okuyan varsa bu konudaki düşüncelerini merak ediyorum.
1001 kitap listesinde olduğunu da belirterek özellikle benim gibi erken dönem eserlere ilgi duyanlara tavsiye ederim.Esen kalın .
June 14, 2017
Both as one of the earliest professional female English authors, and as a prolific writer not only of drama, but also of prose fiction and poetry, using settings that reached beyond Europe to the New World, Aphra Behn is an important and interesting writer; and this collection provides a good selection of her work, showcasing not only its diversity, but also its varying quality.
Of the prose works given here, Oroonoko is by far the best: a fascinating and thought-provoking narrative that both embodies and questions contemporary views of slavery and nobility as well as providing an entertaining story.
Of the two plays, The Widow Ranter (also set in the American colonies) starts the more promisingly, with a colorful cast of comical drunkards and cowards alongside its more recognisable Restoration chancers, but suffers from a lack of generic focus in its baggy later acts.
Which leaves The Rover, a play that manages, like many Restoration comedies, not only to attract with the exuberance of its embrace of rakish license, but also to repel. Unfortunately, there is not enough of the former to make up for the latter. Behn's heroines, especially the vigorously proactive-in-love Hellena, are appealing, and represent something of an advance towards an enlightened view of equality of sexual freedom; seen especially in Willmore's opinion that "a woman's honour is not worth guarding when she has a mind to part with it." But this only goes so far. For these "Banish'd Cavaliers" sexual assault is ultimately no big deal as long as its victim is unknown to, and of a lower social class to, her attackers: "'twould anger us vilely to be trussed up for a rape upon a maid of quality, when we only believe we ruffle a harlot." Pretty unpleasant stuff on the page, and I think (although not having seen the play performed) it would take a lot of work to make it any less so on the stage.
Of the prose works given here, Oroonoko is by far the best: a fascinating and thought-provoking narrative that both embodies and questions contemporary views of slavery and nobility as well as providing an entertaining story.
Of the two plays, The Widow Ranter (also set in the American colonies) starts the more promisingly, with a colorful cast of comical drunkards and cowards alongside its more recognisable Restoration chancers, but suffers from a lack of generic focus in its baggy later acts.
Which leaves The Rover, a play that manages, like many Restoration comedies, not only to attract with the exuberance of its embrace of rakish license, but also to repel. Unfortunately, there is not enough of the former to make up for the latter. Behn's heroines, especially the vigorously proactive-in-love Hellena, are appealing, and represent something of an advance towards an enlightened view of equality of sexual freedom; seen especially in Willmore's opinion that "a woman's honour is not worth guarding when she has a mind to part with it." But this only goes so far. For these "Banish'd Cavaliers" sexual assault is ultimately no big deal as long as its victim is unknown to, and of a lower social class to, her attackers: "'twould anger us vilely to be trussed up for a rape upon a maid of quality, when we only believe we ruffle a harlot." Pretty unpleasant stuff on the page, and I think (although not having seen the play performed) it would take a lot of work to make it any less so on the stage.
June 13, 2021
When reading Oroonoko, The Rover, and Other Works, it is important to remember the historical, political, and social context in which it was written, the person with whom is writing it, and the limitations of form that existed at the time. In this, there are many reasons why Aphra Behn is extraordinary; a woman who had the privilege to travel internationally, who married early (but well enough), pursued a literary career despite her gender, and yes, was a spy too! She's interesting and opinionated and was keen to explore different forms of expressions to articulate her (ofttimes) radical judgments on sexuality, gender norms, and social structures, to name a few. And I like her: I like what she tried to do; I like that she was courageous enough to do it; I like that she was stubborn enough to slog on.
But -- that doesn't mean the literature stands on its own. Almost all the modes she attempts in this collection (prose, epistolary, playwriting, and poetry) are all uneven in form and execution. The ideas are interesting and sometimes even daring in its innovativeness, but cleverness is not enough to cover the unevenness of tediousness, of two-dimensional characterisations, of the hollowness in the dialogue and its meaning, and of the placating to normative forms. In truth: I was bored through most of it; it felt like a slog because there was nothing to grasp on to; so much of it was typical and when it wasn't, it translated merely to titillation rather than thought-provoking or unique perceptions of individuals, of society, or history.
But -- that doesn't mean the literature stands on its own. Almost all the modes she attempts in this collection (prose, epistolary, playwriting, and poetry) are all uneven in form and execution. The ideas are interesting and sometimes even daring in its innovativeness, but cleverness is not enough to cover the unevenness of tediousness, of two-dimensional characterisations, of the hollowness in the dialogue and its meaning, and of the placating to normative forms. In truth: I was bored through most of it; it felt like a slog because there was nothing to grasp on to; so much of it was typical and when it wasn't, it translated merely to titillation rather than thought-provoking or unique perceptions of individuals, of society, or history.
June 4, 2022
I have been reading this 'in instalments' for a while. The plays can be a little heavy going, although I'm sure that if properly presented on stage they would have a significantly easier to follow feeling. In this edition [Penguin Classics 1991] there are copious endnotes. While a proportion of these are helpful they fall into three categories - meanings of words used in the text - some of which are much less obscure than others and could happily have been omitted -, historical contextualising [again, some of which is extraneous] and the remainder are notes as to which 'original' version of the text the present version is taken from. It might have been better if the categories had been split between foot notes and endnotes - it became tedious to have to leave the text to find the appropriate reference at the end of the book, only to find that its content was entirely unnecessary - it does not help fluidity of understanding!
I am fairly sure that I saw a production of The Rover many years ago and suspect that it was performed at school (in which case it was half a century or more ago), probably by the sixth form, in which case it was an ambitious selection and from memory it was well done. Hopefully the current commemorations being undertaken in Canterbury might lead to a revival of these plays.
The poetry is, in places, utterly sublime and rivals the work of many better known male poets.
I am fairly sure that I saw a production of The Rover many years ago and suspect that it was performed at school (in which case it was half a century or more ago), probably by the sixth form, in which case it was an ambitious selection and from memory it was well done. Hopefully the current commemorations being undertaken in Canterbury might lead to a revival of these plays.
The poetry is, in places, utterly sublime and rivals the work of many better known male poets.
January 11, 2025
I don’t even know how this got onto my bookshelf but of course this was the book I pulled out to start the year—possibly the oldest work on my bookshelf.
I didn’t know a thing about Aphra Behn heading into this book but I’ve learnt a lot by seeing the mid-1600s through her eyes. The three prose were interesting, and Oroonoko specifically was a fascinating read if not devastating. Behn shows a lot of the people of her time with some racist descriptions but having a black protagonist was quite ahead of her times. And at times, she comes off as pro-abolitionist which was really ahead of her era.
Her play, The Rover, was honestly enjoyable and I found myself chuckling out loud. Setting it during carnival was a great touch and I enjoyed the multiple miscommunications throughout. Unfortunately I cant say the same for the other play in this book which was tedious and boring and exhausting.
Finally, as someone just not into poems, I didn’t have much to say about most of the poetry in this set of works other than the epilogue poem about women being equal to men.
I really appreciate the very detailed notes given by Janet Todd. It made reading this a lot easier than work from the 1600s might have been. So thanks, Janet!
2.5/5
I didn’t know a thing about Aphra Behn heading into this book but I’ve learnt a lot by seeing the mid-1600s through her eyes. The three prose were interesting, and Oroonoko specifically was a fascinating read if not devastating. Behn shows a lot of the people of her time with some racist descriptions but having a black protagonist was quite ahead of her times. And at times, she comes off as pro-abolitionist which was really ahead of her era.
Her play, The Rover, was honestly enjoyable and I found myself chuckling out loud. Setting it during carnival was a great touch and I enjoyed the multiple miscommunications throughout. Unfortunately I cant say the same for the other play in this book which was tedious and boring and exhausting.
Finally, as someone just not into poems, I didn’t have much to say about most of the poetry in this set of works other than the epilogue poem about women being equal to men.
I really appreciate the very detailed notes given by Janet Todd. It made reading this a lot easier than work from the 1600s might have been. So thanks, Janet!
2.5/5
February 22, 2024
I have seen a number of comments suggesting Behn is a racist, but this is an ahistorical misunderstanding of her work. The character of Oroonoko is supposed to be a representation of King Charles I, and is a sympathetic portrayal of a King wrongly persecuted by others lesser than himself. The notion of ‘black as other’ is in fact an eighteenth century construction, and one that finds no foothold in Behn’s work, for whom the only virtues were aristocracy and wit. There have been various attempts to write behn out of history - firstly because she was a woman, and secondly because she was considered too sexually frank. I encourage readers to read her within her historical context and to not excise her again, merely because she deals with subjects which are culturally problematic today.
December 6, 2021
Aphra Behn is so cool man. Did you know she was a Royalist spy? Reading this for my English lit class and I thought it was going to be long and boring but its actually not that long and very interesting. Took a while to get used to all the random caps everywhere and when she says “dye” I thought we were dyeing some clothes for a second there took me a couple lines to realize it was not that kind of dye… Well anyway, Oroonoko & Imoinda deserved better! Giving me some These Violent Ends flashbacks, might have to schedule a being sad session into my plans for tonite. Why they always gotta kill off the best ones, man.😔
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 1, 2017
I was completely taken in by this novel. Behn is considered the first woman novelist and she bravely chose to write an Emancipation Novel. I felt she cleverly wrote about a highly charged subject, given her gender and the age in which she was writing. Oroonoko has his flaws but in the end he is quite sympathetic and his experiences as a slave are realistic and believable.
January 20, 2021
I enjoyed most of this much more than I thought I would:
The Fair Jilt - 2 stars
Oroonoko - 4 stars
Love-Letters to a Gentleman - 3 stars.
The Rover - 5 stars.
The Widow Ranter - 4 stars.
The items of poetry included - 4 stars.
"pray tell me then
Why women should not write as well as men".
The Fair Jilt - 2 stars
Oroonoko - 4 stars
Love-Letters to a Gentleman - 3 stars.
The Rover - 5 stars.
The Widow Ranter - 4 stars.
The items of poetry included - 4 stars.
"pray tell me then
Why women should not write as well as men".
November 2, 2021
Well the things I read in this grad class (Oroonoko, Rover, poems), make me never want to hear Behn’s name again. I’m only give it two stars based on the fact that this contains the Widow Ranter, and, aside from the language, was actually kinda funny. I read this in undergrad and actually saved the rep of Behn IMO.
April 29, 2020
Bogen har historisk værdi. Det er måske den første roman på engelsk, måske den første roman af en kvinde. Man kunne lede efter tegn på, om den er fremme for sin tid eller ej. Som historie er den ikke meget at skrive hjem om. Den er stereotyp, overgrundig i beskrivelserne.
May 20, 2021
Read for uni. Analysed to death. I get why it’s important to the history of the modern novel but it’s definitely not what I would choose to read for myself and I don’t think it’s stands up in 2021. Great to use as a tool in class but not a “good read” by any stretch.
September 27, 2021
very easy to read and nice tragic depiction of the hero's conflict, which was my favourite thing from this short-novella. iwal entera racista y monárquica la mujers, pero no hay q esperar mucho de la perspectiva racial en el s.xvii.
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