Aphra Behn

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Portrait of Aphra Behn, aged approximately 30, by Mary Beale.
Portrait of Aphra Behn, aged approximately 30, by Mary Beale.

Aphra Behn (July 10, 1640 – April 16, 1689) was a prolific dramatist of the Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing participated in the amatory fiction genre of British literature.

Contents

[edit] Early life

The personal history of Aphra Behn, one of the first Englishwomen credited to earn their livelihood by authorship[1] , is unusually interesting but very difficult to unravel and relate. Information regarding her, especially her early life, is scanty, but she was almost certainly born in Wye, near Canterbury, on July 10, 1640 to Bartholomew Johnson, a barber, and Elizabeth Denham. Aphra's parents were married in 1638 and Aphra, or Eaffry, was baptized on December 14, 1640. Elizabeth Denham was employed as a nurse to the wealthy Colepeper family, who lived locally, which means that it is likely that Aphra grew up with and spent time with the family's children. The younger child, Thomas Colepeper, later described Aphra as his foster sister.

In 1663 Aphra visited an English sugar colony on the Suriname River, on the coast east of Venezuela (a region later known as Suriname). During this trip Aphra is supposed to have met an African slave leader, whose story formed the basis for one of her most famous works, Oroonoko. The veracity of her journey to Suriname has often been called into question; however, enough evidence has been found that most Behn scholars today believe that the trip did indeed take place.

[edit] Life in England, writing career, work as a spy

A sketch of Aphra Behn by George Scharf from a portrait believed to be lost.
A sketch of Aphra Behn by George Scharf from a portrait believed to be lost.

Shortly after her return to England in 1664 Aphra married Johan Behn, who was a merchant of German or Dutch extraction. Little conclusive information is known about Aphra's marriage, but it did not last for more than a few years. Some scholars believe that the marriage never existed and Behn made it up purely to gain the status of a widow, which would have been much more beneficial for what she was trying to achieve. She was reportedly bisexual, and held a larger attraction to women than to men, a trait that, coupled with her writings and references of this nature, would eventually make her popular in the writing and artistic communities of the 20th century and present day. [1] [2] [3]

By 1666 Behn had become attached to the Court, possibly through the influence of Thomas Culpepper and other associates of influence, where she was recruited as a political spy to Antwerp by Charles II. Her code name for her exploits is said to have been Astrea, a name under which she subsequently published much of her writings. The Second Anglo-Dutch War had broken out between England and the Netherlands in 1665. [4] She became the lover to a prominent and powerful royal, and from him she obtained political secrets to be used to the English advantage. [5]

Aphra's exploits were not profitable, however, as Charles was slow in paying (if he paid at all) for either her services or her expenses whilst abroad. Money had to be borrowed for Aphra to return to London, where a year's petitioning of Charles for payment went unheard, and she ended up in a debtor's prison. By 1669 an undisclosed source had paid Aphra's debts, and she was released from prison, starting from this point to become one of the first women who wrote for a living. She cultivated the friendship of various playwrights, and starting in 1670 she produced many plays and novels, as well as poems and pamphlets. Her most popular works included The Rover, Love-Letters Between a Noble-Man and his Sister, and Oroonoko. Amongst her notable critics was Alexander Pope, against whom she has been defended.

Aphra Behn died on April 16, 1689, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Below the inscription on her tombstone read the words: "Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be / Defence enough against Mortality." [6] She was quoted as once stating that she had led a "life dedicated to pleasure and poetry." [7]

[edit] Status among other writers throughout history

In author Virginia Woolf's reckoning, Behn's total career is more important than any particular work it produced. After a hiatus in the 19th century, when both the writer and the work were dismissed as indecent, Behn's fame has now undergone extraordinary revival. She dominates cultural-studies discourse as both a topic and a set of texts. [8]

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."[2]

More recently people have taken more notice of what she actually wrote, as opposed to just her career. [3]

In an age of libertines, Behn undertook to proclaim and to analyse women's sexual desire, as manifested in her characters and in herself. She has since become a favourite among sexually liberated women, many of bisexual or lesbian orientation, who proclaim her as one of their most positive influences. [9]

Today, the affinities between Behn's work and that of Romantic writers seem more pronounced than the different level of publicly acceptable discussion of sexuality. [10] It has been written that "Behn's writings unveil the homosocial role of male rivalry in stimulating heterosexual desire for women and explores the ways in which cross dressing and masquerade complicate and destabilize gender relations. Behn also analyzes female friendships and, more rarely, lesbianism". [11] [12]One source of speculation has been the identification of Behn with some of her characters. For instance in The Rover, the similarity in names between Behn and the prostitute Angellica Bianca is interesting.

"I, vainly proud of my personal judgement, hang out the Sign of Angellica"

In several volumes of writings by author Janet Todd, Behn's explorations of some of the key issues in Romantic studies, such as the role of incestuous and homosocial bonding in romance, the correlations between racial and gender oppression, female subjectivity, and, more specifically, female political and sexual agency are detailed. [13]

The noted critic Harold Bloom calls Behn a "fourth-rate playwright" and notes her resurgent popularity as a case of "dumbing down." [14]

[edit] Quotes of Aphra Behn

  • "Love ceases to be a pleasure, when it ceases to be a secret." [15]
  • "Variety is the soul of pleasure." [16]
  • "Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand." [17]
  • "There is no sinner like a young saint." [18]

[edit] Plays

Posthumously performed

  • The Widow Ranter (1689)
  • The Younger Brother (1696)

[edit] Novels

[edit] Trivia

As with a number of other historical figures, Behn figures prominently in the "Riverworld" cycle of science-fiction novels by Philip Jose Farmer. Behn appears as the lover of Napoleonic soldier Jean Baptiste Antoine Marcelin, the Baron de Marbot, with whom, Farmer states, she had previously been intimate during her life on Earth. After the destruction of the boat upon which she and de Marbot both serve, they join the group led by famed English explorer Richard Francis Burton and accompanies him on the journey to the head of the River. Both Behn and de Marbot reach the Tower at the head of the River, only to die in combat when androids based on characters from "Through the Looking-Glass" attack the guests during a Lewis Carroll-themed party.

[edit] Biographies and writings based on her life

  • Maureen Duffy (1977). The Passionate Shepherdess.  The first wholly scholarly new biography of Behn; the first to identify Behn's birth name.
  • Angeline Goreau, Reconstructing Aphra: a social biography of Aphra Behn (New York: Dial Press, 1980). ISBN 0-8037-7478-8 [4]
  • Angeline Goreau. Aphra Behn: A scandal to modesty (c. 1640-1689) in Spender, Dale (ed.) Feminist theorists: Three centuries of key women thinkers, Pantheon 1983, pp. 8-27 ISBN 0-394-53438-7.
  • Derek Hughes (2001). The Theatre of Aphra Behn. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-76030-1. 
  • Janet Todd (1997). The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-2455-5.  a biography concentrating on the political activism of Behn, with new material on her life as a spy.
  • Vita Sackville-West (1927). 'Aphra Behn - The Incomparable Astrea'. Gerald Howe.  A view of Behn more sympathetic and laudatory than Woolf's.
  • Virginia Woolf (1929). A Room of One's Own.  One section deals with Behn, but it is a starting point for the feminist rediscovery of Behn's role.

[edit] Other sources

  • Hobby, Elaine. Virtue of necessity: English women's writing 1649-88. University of Michigan 1989
  • Summers, Montague (ed.). Aphra Behn: Works. London 1913

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Summers, Montague. The Works of Aphra Behn. London: William Heineman, 1913
  2. ^ Woolf, Virginia. A room of one's own. 1928, at 65
  3. ^ Walters, Margaret. "Feminism: A very short introduction". Oxford University 2005 at 24 (ISBN 0-19-280510-X)
  4. ^ Should be read as the least speculative of the Behn biographies

[edit] External links

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NAME Behn, Aphra
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Author
DATE OF BIRTH July 10, 1640
PLACE OF BIRTH England
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 1689
PLACE OF DEATH
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