Aphra Behn StudiesJanet Todd Aphra Behn was England's first professional woman writer, but her status as a major author has only recently become clear. Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, Behn was denigrated for her 'unwomanly' subject matter and intellectual immodesty. In the twentieth century she has been increasingly viewed as an important dramatist and poet of the Restoration and a founder of the English novel. This book sets Behn firmly in an historical context of political factions, theatre developments and colonial encounters, and includes chapters on each of the genres in which she wrote: drama, fiction, poetry and translation, and on other aspects of her life, from her publishing struggles to her involvement in American slavery. It is an important resource for those studying seventeenth-century English literature and drama, and to those interested in the development of women's writing. |
Contents
Introduction JANET TODD | 1 |
Sexual politics and party politics in Behns drama 167883 15 | 15 |
The Feignd Curtizans in context 30 | 30 |
false counts and pageant 50 | 50 |
Behn and the use of theatre 66 | 66 |
The Rover and the eighteenth century 84 | 84 |
poetry and masquerade 109 | 109 |
For when the act is done and finisht cleane what 130 | 130 |
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Common terms and phrases
African Angellica Aphra Behn Astrea's Booke audience become Behn's Behn's Oroonoko Behn's plays Behn's poem body Burnet Canterbury Cathedral Catholic Catholicism Cellier character Charles Cloris comedy court Cowley death difference Dorset Dorset Gardens Theatre drama Dryden Dutch eighteenth-century Elizabeth Cellier English essay Exclusion Crisis Feign'd Curtizans female femininity fiction Firth French gender Golden Age Hellena hero honour Imoinda James Janet Todd king kingship L'Estrange Lady libertine lines literary London Love-Letters lover Lycidus male Mary Mary of Modena masculine masquerade Maureen Duffy Muse narrator Octavio Oroonoko Passionate Shepherdess penis Philander poet poetry political Popish Plot Prince prologue promptbook puritans racial Restoration Restoration comedy Roundheads Rover royalist satire scene seems seventeenth century sexual Silvia Sir Roger L'Estrange Sir Signal slaves stage stereotypes story Stuart suggests Surinam theatre Tickletext tion Titus Oates Tory translation verse Wharton Whig Willmore Wolseley woman women writing