The Critical Fortunes Of Aphra Behn

This is the first study of the posthumous life of Aphra Behn, the extraordinary vicissitudes of her critical reception, and the personal vilifications of her reputation through three centuries. Beginning with the reception of Behn's work during her lifetime, which she herself helped to orchestrate by performing herself as a seductive woman, a beleaguered lady writer, and a serious intellectual, among other roles, the work ends with the late 20th-century reception of Behn, when the interest in gender, race, and class has made of her almost a postmodern writer. In the 17th century she was seen as a playwright of sexy and propagandist comedies, and attacked by those who disapproved her supposedly unfeminine stance and her royalist politics. Later, as the Restoration period itself fell into disrepute, Behn's plays were denigrated along with those of her fellow men, but greater opprobrium fell on her as a woman, because in the 19th century it was felt that a female writer should have higher morals than a man. During this period, Behn's reputation was exceedingly low, while her short story Oroonoko gained acclaim, freed from any association with its author or her supposedly squalid times. In the 18th and 19th centuries Oroonoko moved from being viewed as political commentary and heroic romance to a sentimental tale of doomed love and then an abolitionist text. In the early twentieth century it was hailed as one of the earliest realist texts, part of the great English ascent into the novel. JANET TODD is professor of English at the University of East Anglia

Traditionally known as the first professional woman writer in English, Aphra Behn has now emerged as one of the major figures of the Restoration. She provided more plays for the stage than any other author and greatly influenced the development of the novel with her ground-breaking fiction, especially Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister and Oroonoko, the first English novel set in America. Behn's work straddles the genres: beside drama and fiction, she also excelled in poetry and she made several important translations from French libertine and scientific works. This Companion discusses and introduces her writings in all these fields and provides the critical tools with which to judge their aesthetic and historical importance. It also includes a full bibliography, a detailed chronology and a description of the known facts of her life. The Companion will be an essential tool for the study of this increasingly important writer and thinker.

A Study Guide for Aphra Behn's "The Rover," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.

The formal and expressive range of canonic eighteenth-century fiction is enourmous: between them Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Smollett and Sterne seem to have anticipated just about every question confronting the modern novelist; and Aphra Behn even raises a number of issues overlooked by her male successors. But one might also reverse the coin: much of what is present in these writers will today seem remote and bizarre. There is, in fact, only one novelist from the 'long' eighteenth century who is not an endangered species outside the protectorates of university English departments: Jane Austen. Plenty of people read her, moreover, without the need for secondary literature. These reservations were taken into account in the writing of this book. An Introduction to Eighteenth Century Fiction is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to English fiction from Aphra Behn to Jane Austen. It deals with novel criticism, canon formation and relations between genre and gender. The second part of the book contains an extensive discussion of Richardson and Fielding, followed by paired readings of major eighteenth-century novels, juxtaposing texts by Behn and Defoe, Sterne and Smollett, Lennox and Burney among others. The various sections of the book, and even the individual chapters, may be read independently or in any order. Works are discussed in a way intended to help students who have not read them, and even engage with some who never will. The author consumes eighteenth-century fiction avidly, but has tried to write a reader-friendly survey for those who may not.

A Study Guide for Aphra Behn's "Oroonoko," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

During the nineteen years of her play-writing career, Aphra Behn had far more new plays staged than anyone else. This book is the first to examine all her theatrical work. It explains her often dominant place in the complex theatrical culture of Charles II's reign, her divided political sympathies, and her interests as a free-thinking intellectual. It also reveals her as a brilliant theatrical practitioner, who used the seen as richly and significantly as the spoken.

A volume in the Writers and Their Work series, which draws upon recent thinking in English studies to introduce writers and their contexts. Each volume includes biographical material, an examination of recent criticism, a bibliography and a reappraisal of a major work by the writer.

A critical study of the work of Aphra Behn, one of the most inventive and original woman writers of the 17th century.