Female writer: Aphra Behn (1640-1689)

 

APHRA BEHN (1640-1689)

• Who she was?

Aphra Behn was an English playwright, writer and spy, best known for being the first professional woman writer. She worked as a spy for Charles II, whom she was related to, affectionately. Working as a spy provided her with low incomes so she had to quit and dedicate full-time to writing. She spends a few time in prison for her debts.

• What has she written?

She is known for writing lots of comedies (15 plays between 1670 and 1687, almost one per year), poems and novels, where we can found her most famous work ‘Oroonoko, or the royal slave’, written in 1688.

LIST OF WORKS

PLAYS:

·         The forc’d marriage 1670

·         The amorous prince 1671

·         The dutch lover 1673

·         Abdelazer 1676

·         The town fop 1676

·         The rover, part 1 (1677), part 2 (1681)

·         Sir patient fancy (1678)

·         The feigned courtesans (1679)

·         The young king (1679)

·         The false count (1681)

·         The roundheads (1681)

·         The city heiress (1682)

·         Like father, like son (1682)

·         Prologue and epilogue to Romulus and Hersilia, or the Sabine War (1682)

·         The lucky chance (1686)

·         The emperor of the moon (1687)

POSTHUMOUSLY PERFORMED

• The widow ranter (1689)
• The younger brother (1696)

NOVELS

• The fair jilt (1688)
• Agnes de Castro (1688)
• Love letters between a nobleman and his sisters (1684)
• Oroonoko, or the royal slave (1688)

SHORT STORIES/NOVELLAS

• The history of the nun: or, the fair vow-breaker (1688)
• The history of the servant
• The lover boy of Germany
• The girl who loved the German lover-boy

POETRY COLLECTIONS

• Poems upon several occasions, with a voyage to the island of love (1684)
• Lycidus; or, the lover in fashion (1688)

• What has she said?

I would like to quote another work of her (‘The lucky chance’), which I found quite right:

“That perfect tranquility of life, which is nowhere to be found but in retreat, a faithful friend and a good library.”

• Why should we not forget her and her work

Besides being the first woman writer to earn her living by her pen (a bit forsaken for the literary world) and, paraphrasing Virginia Woolf (A room of one’s own), we have to honor the memory of Aphra Behn because she taught the women to fight and reclaim that we, women, have the right to take part in the literary word, something that was restricted to the women.