Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn
Peter Lely · Public domain · source
Name	Aphra Behn
Caption	Portrait of Behn (attributed)
Birth date	c. 1640
Death date	1689
Occupation	Playwright, poet, novelist, translator, spy
Notable works	The Rover, Oroonoko, The Forced Marriage

Aphra Behn was a 17th-century English dramatist, poet, translator, and novelist who became one of the first English women to earn a living by writing. She wrote for the Restoration stage, contributed to periodical literature, and produced the novella "Oroonoko," which became a landmark in early English prose fiction. Her career intersected with political, diplomatic, and colonial affairs during the reign of Charles II and the political turbulence surrounding the Exclusion Crisis and the Glorious Revolution.

Early life and background

Born in Kent or Essex around 1640, Behn's early biography remains partially obscure, with later accounts placing her childhood in or near Canterbury, Woolwich, or Bexley. Contemporary records suggest ties to families connected with the Royal Navy and the English Civil War aftermath. In the 1660s she traveled to the Dutch Republic and may have served under Sir William Temple or worked in households associated with the English embassy in Brussels and The Hague. Biographers have debated associations with figures such as Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, John Dryden, and Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon based on surviving correspondence, pamphlets, and legal documents.

Career as a playwright and novelist

Behn emerged as a professional writer during the Restoration theater revival, producing plays for companies like the King's Company and the Duke's Company. Her dramatic oeuvre includes comedies and tragedies staged at venues such as the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, with notable works including "The Forced Marriage", "The Rover", and "Sir Patient Fancy". She collaborated and competed with contemporaries like William Wycherley, George Etherege, Nathaniel Lee, and Thomas Otway, while her plays were acted by performers including Elizabeth Barry, Thomas Betterton, and Anne Bracegirdle. As a translator and adapter she engaged with materials from Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, and Molière, contributing translations that circulated alongside editions by Edward Phillips and Samuel Pepys's diaries mention of Restoration dramatists.

Her prose fiction, most famously "Oroonoko", drew attention from readers of The Tatler and The Spectator and was influential on later novelists such as Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding. Behn published poems and political pamphlets through London booksellers like Jacob Tonson and Henry Herringman, and her work appeared in collections alongside poets such as John Dryden, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, and Andrew Marvell.

Political activities and alleged espionage

In the 1660s Behn served in a capacity tied to the Tangier garrison and the Anglo-Dutch diplomatic environment, reportedly undertaking missions on behalf of the Crown during the Anglo-Dutch conflicts that culminated in the Second Anglo-Dutch War and Third Anglo-Dutch War. She claimed to have worked as a government agent in Suriname and Brussels under the patronage of figures connected to the Court of Charles II, prompting speculation about contacts with Sir William Temple, Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, and John Thurloe. Her alleged espionage became a subject of controversy in parliamentary debates and polemical pamphlets during the rise of the Whig and Tory factions and the Popish Plot aftermath. Accusations and defenses of her activities involved publications circulated in forums alongside broadsides by Andrew Marvell and party tracts related to the Exclusion Bill.

Literary themes and style

Behn's writing fused elements from Italian and French theatrical traditions, Caribbean and African narratives, and the Restoration libertine milieu. "Oroonoko" engages with the transatlantic slave trade, colonial governance in Suriname, and royalist perspectives on honor, drawing comparisons with accounts by John Hawkins and debates incited by Anthony Ashley Cooper's circle. Her comedies examine gender, sexuality, and social mobility through stock characters and situations familiar to audiences of Restoration comedy, employing linguistic wit akin to Ben Jonson's influence and structural devices used by Shakespeare and Marvell. She experimented with narrative voice, dramatic irony, and epistolary techniques that anticipate formal developments seen later in the works of Laurence Sterne and Jane Austen.

Behn's verse ranges from occasional poems celebrating court figures like Charles II and Catherine of Braganza to satirical pieces addressing parliamentary figures and literary rivals such as Aphra Behn critics found in pamphlets by John Dryden's adversaries. Her treatment of female desire and political engagement positioned her within debates involving Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Eliza Haywood on women's authorship.

Reception, influence, and legacy

Contemporary reception mixed approbation from royalist patrons with attacks from Puritan and Whig pamphleteers; critics like Jeremy Collier later censured Restoration dramatists including Behn in controversies over licentiousness and stage immorality. In the 18th and 19th centuries her reputation fluctuated amid changing tastes that favored novelists such as Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding, while 20th-century scholarship revived interest through studies by scholars focusing on feminist criticism, including work inspired by Virginia Woolf, Elaine Showalter, and Helen C. White. Modern staging and scholarship have linked her legacy to movements around women's suffrage, postcolonial studies, and the recovery of early women writers in curricula alongside figures like Mary Wollstonecraft and Charlotte Brontë.

Her influence is evident in adaptations of her plays by 20th-century directors at institutions such as the Royal Shakespeare Company and in critical editions edited by scholars associated with Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. Behn's life and work continue to generate debate in conferences sponsored by organizations like the Modern Language Association and the British Association for Romantic Studies, and she features in anthologies of Restoration literature alongside writers such as John Dryden, William Congreve, and Nathaniel Lee.

Category:17th-century English writers Category:Restoration dramatists and playwrights