The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn Edited by Derek Hughes and Janet Todd Frontmatter More Information
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Aphra Behn: Libertine? Or Marital Reformer?
Aphra Behn: Libertine? Or Marital Reformer? A History, with an Examination of Several Plays and Fictions By Florence Irene Munson Rouse in Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of Master ofArts in English May 12, 1998 Thesis Adviser: Iit. William C. Home Aphra Behn: Libertine? Or Marital Refiormer? A Histqry with an Examinjation ofSeveral Prays and Fictions This Thesis for the M.A. degree in English by Florence Irene Munson Rouse has been approved for the Graduate Faculty by Supervisor: Reader: Date: Aphra Behn was an important female vliter in the Restoration era. She wrote twenty or more plays which were produced on the London stage, as well as a dozen or more novels, several volumes ofpoetry, and numerous translations. She was the flrSt WOman VIiter tO Cam her living byher pen. After she became successful, a concerted attack was made on her, alleging a libertine life and inmoral behavior. Gradually, her life work was expunged from the seventeenth-century literary canon based on this alleged lifestyle. Since little factual information is available about her her life, critics have been happyto invent various scenarios. The only true understanding ofher attitudes is found in the reading ofher plays, not to establish autobiographical facts, but to understandher attitudes. Based on the evidence inher many depictions oflibertine men in her satirical comedies, she disliked male libertines and foundtheir behavior deplorable. in plays and poetry, her longing for a new social order in which men and women micht love andrespect one another in freely chosen wedlock is the dominant theme. Far from being libertine, Aphra Behn is an early pioneer for companionate marriage. -
About the Authors
About the Authors Moira Ferguson was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and took a B.A. at the University of London and a Ph.D. at the University of Washing- ton. She is an associate professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and former chairwoman of women's studies. She has been a fellow of the Henry E. Huntington Library and has received an American Council of Learned Societies Award and an American Association of University Women Founders Fellowship. Her scholarly articles and reviews have appeared in such journals as Philological Quarterly, Minnesota Review, Signs, English Language Notes, Romantic Movement, Wordsworth Circle, Victorian Studies^ and Women's Studies International Forum. She is the compiler and editor of First Feminists: British Women Writers 1578-1799 (1983). She is currently preparing a study of women's protest writings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Janet Todd, fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, was born in Llandrindod-Wells, Wales. She took a B.A. at the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. at the University of Florida. From 1964 to 1967 she taught in Ghana, mainly at the University of Cape Coast, and from 1972 to 1974 at the University of Puerto Rico. Since then, until 1983, she was professor of English at Rutgers University. She has been the recipient of NEH and ACLS awards and of a Guggen- heim Fellowship. Her books include In Adam's Garden: A Study of John Clare's Pre-Asylum Poetry (1973), A Wollstonecraft Anthology (1977), Women's Friendship in Literature (1980), and, with M. -
FRENCH INFLUENCES on ENGLISH RESTORATION THEATRE a Thesis
FRENCH INFLUENCES ON ENGLISH RESTORATION THEATRE A thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of A the requirements for the Degree 2oK A A Master of Arts * In Drama by Anne Melissa Potter San Francisco, California Spring 2016 Copyright by Anne Melissa Potter 2016 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read French Influences on English Restoration Theatre by Anne Melissa Potter, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts: Drama at San Francisco State University. Bruce Avery, Ph.D. < —•— Professor of Drama "'"-J FRENCH INFLUENCES ON RESTORATION THEATRE Anne Melissa Potter San Francisco, California 2016 This project will examine a small group of Restoration plays based on French sources. It will examine how and why the English plays differ from their French sources. This project will pay special attention to the role that women played in the development of the Restoration theatre both as playwrights and actresses. It will also examine to what extent French influences were instrumental in how women develop English drama. I certify that the abstract rrect representation of the content of this thesis PREFACE In this thesis all of the translations are my own and are located in the footnote preceding the reference. I have cited plays in the way that is most helpful as regards each play. In plays for which I have act, scene and line numbers I have cited them, using that information. For example: I.ii.241-244. -
Introduction: Virginity and Patrilinear Legitimacy 1
Notes Introduction: Virginity and Patrilinear Legitimacy 1. Boswell, volume III, 406. 2. Pregnancy makes sex more verifiable than celibacy but it does not necessarily reveal paternity. 3. Bruce Boehrer has an important essay on this topic, in which he argues that an ideal “wedded chastity” emerges as a strategy for promoting marriage and procreation in a society that has traditionally idealized celibacy and virginity; “indeed,” he continues, “at heart the concept of wedded chastity is little more than the willful destabi- lizing of an inconvenient signifier, calculated to serve the procreative demands of an emergent political economy” (557). 4. For an important discussion of divine right of kings, see Figgis, 137–177, and for an analysis of the different strands of patriarchalist thought, see Schochet, 1–18. 5. See Boehrer for a discussion of Elizabeth’s legitimacy issues, which he uses as a context for reading Spencer. He argues that a “Legend of Chastity” functions as a displacement of the anxiety of legitimacy (566). On Elizabeth’s virginity, see also Hackett; and John King. On early modern virginity generally, see Jankowski; Kathleen Coyne Kelly; Loughlin; Scholz; and Schwarz. 6. Marie Loughlin argues for the relationship between Stuart political projects and virginity. James I had a habit of visiting married couples after the wedding night because, according to Loughlin, in the moment when the virgin daughter becomes the chaste bride “James’s configuration of the patriarchal state and his various political projects are materialized” (1996), 847. 7. For more on this, see McKeon (1987), 209. 8. Since the determination of firstborn son was not clear, firstborn ille- gitimate children often held some stake to the birth-right of the heir. -
The Rover by Aphra Behn
By Shailesh Ranjan Assistant Professor Dept. of English, Maharaja College, Ara. About the Author Aphra Behn was one of the first English professional writers wrote plays, poetry, short stories and novels. Little information is known about her early life. She was born in about 1640 near Canterbury, England.Her family were Royalists, connected with powerful catholic families and the court. She may have been raised Catholic and educated in a convent abroad. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II , who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. •After her return to London she started her writings. •She wrote under the pastrol pseudonym Astrea. •A staunch supporter of the Stuart Line, she declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming poem to the new king William III. •She died shortly after. Her grave is not included in the Poets Corner but lies in the East Cloister near the steps to the church. •Virginia Woolf writes about her in her famous work ‘A Room of One’s Own’ - “ All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is , most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.” • She challenged with expressing herself in a patriarchal system that generally refused to grant merit to women’s views.Women who went against were in risk of being exiled from their communities and targeted to be involved in witch hunts. -
Making Space: the Case for Amatory Fiction, 1660-1740
MAKING SPACE: THE CASE FOR AMATORY FICTION, 1660-1740 _______________ A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department Of English University of Houston _______________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________ By Chrisoula M. Gonzales May, 2017 MAKING SPACE: THE CASE FOR AMATORY FICTION, 1660-1740 _________________________ Chrisoula M. Gonzales APPROVED: _________________________ Ann Christensen, Ph.D. Committee Chair _________________________ David Mazella, Ph.D. _________________________ Maria Gonzalez, Ph.D. _________________________ Lynn Voskuil, Ph.D. _________________________ Robert Shimko, Ph.D. University of Houston _________________________ Antonio D. Tillis, Ph.D. Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Department of Hispanic Studies ii MAKING SPACE: THE CASE FOR AMATORY FICTION, 1660-1740 _______________ An Abstract of a Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Psychology University of Houston _______________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _____________ By Chrisoula M. Gonzales May, 2017 ABSTRACT This dissertation explores amatory fiction as a genre significant to English literary history. I ground the study of amatory fiction in literary history, specifically exploring the ways that amatory fiction participates in the development of the novel. In amatory fiction, female characters express desire in a public setting, a feature that distinguishes amatory fiction from the novel, where characters more often express themselves in private, domestic spaces. By analyzing the various expressions of female desire in the works of Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, Eliza Haywood, and Daniel Defoe, I show that female characters are motivated to inhabit public space because they seek to know themselves as sexual, social, and political agents. -
Print This Article
JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES – VOLUME 17 (2019), 127-147. http://doi.org/10.18172/jes.3565 “DWINDLING DOWN TO FARCE”?: APHRA BEHN’S APPROACH TO FARCE IN THE LATE 1670S AND 80S JORGE FIGUEROA DORREGO1 Universidade de Vigo [email protected] ABSTRACT. In spite of her criticism against farce in the paratexts of The Emperor of the Moon (1687), Aphra Behn makes an extensive use of farcical elements not only in that play and The False Count (1681), which are actually described as farces in their title pages, but also in Sir Patient Fancy (1678), The Feign’d Curtizans (1679), and The Second Part of The Rover (1681). This article contends that Behn adapts French farce and Italian commedia dell’arte to the English Restoration stage mostly resorting to deception farce in order to trick old husbands or fathers, or else foolish, hypocritical coxcombs, and displaying an impressive, skilful use of disguise and impersonation. Behn also turns widely to physical comedy, which is described in detail in stage directions. She appropriates farce in an attempt to please the audience, but also in the service of her own interests as a Tory woman writer. Keywords: Aphra Behn, farce, commedia dell’arte, Restoration England, deception, physical comedy. 1 The author wishes to acknowledge funding for his research from the Spanish government (MINECO project ref. FFI2015-68376-P), the Junta de Andalucía (project ref. P11-HUM-7761) and the Xunta de Galicia (Rede de Lingua e Literatura Inglesa e Identidade III, ref. ED431D2017/17). 127 Journal of English Studies, vol. 17 (2019) 127-147 Jorge Figueroa DORREGO “DWINDLING DOWN TO FARCE”?: LA APROXIMACIÓN DE APHRA BEHN A LA FARSA EN LAS DÉCADAS DE 1670 Y 1680 RESUMEN. -
Princes, Power, and Politics in the Early Plays of Aphra Behn
CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-theses Repository PRINCES, POWER, AND POLITICS IN THE EARLY PLAYS OF APHRA BEHN by JESSICA KATE BENTLEY PIRIE A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English Literature College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham February 2019 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract My thesis explores Aphra Behn’s early plays and their portrayal of monarchical power within the political contexts of Charles II’s reign. The plays are studied chronologically, beginning with The Young King – which Behn claimed she wrote in c.1664 – and continuing through the first four of her works performed on the Restoration stage: The Forc’d Marriage, The Amorous Prince, The Dutch Lover, and Abdelazer. These works have been largely neglected by previous Behn studies, dismissed as experimental forerunners of her better-known works, like The Rover. By contrast, this thesis argues that these plays contain complex analogies of the political concerns and events troubling Charles II’s reign. -
The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn Edited by Derek Hughes and Janet Todd Frontmatter More Information
Cambridge University Press 0521527201 - The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn Edited by Derek Hughes and Janet Todd Frontmatter More information The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn Traditionally known as the first professional woman writer in English, Aphra Behn has now emerged as one of the major figures of the Restoration. During the 1670s and 1680s, 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 Noble-Man 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. The chapters in this Companion discuss and introduce her writings in all these fields and provide the critical tools with which to judge their aesthetic and historical importance. The book 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. derek hughes is Professor of English Literature at the University of Aberdeen. In addition to many articles on Restoration drama and its back- ground, he has published Dryden’s Heroic Plays (1980), English Drama, 1660– 1700 (1996), and The Theatre of Aphra Behn (2001). He was the general editor of the six-volume Eighteenth Century Women Playwrights (2001), and has just completed an edition of early modern texts concerning slavery and America, which includes Behn’s and Southerne’s versions of Oroonoko. -
University of California
UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The English Novel's Cradle: The Theatre and the Women Novelists of the Long Eighteenth Century Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5q32j478 Author Howard, James Joseph Publication Date 2010 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE The English Novel‘s Cradle: The Theatre and the Women Novelists of the Long Eighteenth Century A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by James Joseph Howard March 2010 Dissertation Committee: Dr. George E. Haggerty, Chairperson Dr. Carole Fabricant Dr. Deborah Willis Copyright by James Joseph Howard 2010 The Dissertation of James Howard is approved: ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my appreciation for the guidance and encouragement provided during this project by my Dissertation Committee Chair, Dr. George Haggerty, and the positive support of the other committee members, Dr. Carole Fabricant and Dr. Deborah Willis. I would also like to thank Dr. John Ganim, who served on my doctoral examination committee, for his helpful insights before and especially during my oral examination, and Dr. John Briggs, for his initial encouragement of my entering the doctoral program at UC Riverside. I also extend my gratitude to all the English faculty with whom I had the pleasure of studying during my six years at the Riverside campus. Finally, I must make special mention of the English Graduate Staff Advisor, Tina Feldmann, for her unflinching dedication and patience in resolving not only my own interminable queries and needs, but also those of her entire ―family‖ of English graduate students. -
Copyright 2012 Sarah Elizabeth Alderfer
Copyright 2012 Sarah Elizabeth Alderfer EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION AND THE PRODUCTION OF SHAME, 1680- 1753 BY SARAH ELIZABETH ALDERFER DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Robert Markley, Chair Associate Professor Anthony Pollock, Co-Chair Associate Professor Catharine Gray Associate Professor Lori Humphrey Newcomb Abstract This dissertation argues that eighteenth-century fiction problematizes the relationships among virtue, modesty, and shame. Where the conduct manual and the moral novel demonize the shameless female subject, women writers such as Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood, and Charlottle Lennox consistently decouple shame from virtue to expose the limitations of the virtuous principles in the world of the conduct manual and moral novel. The introduction considers the historical relationship between the conduct manual, the moral novel, and women’s writing and the ways in which each engages in the production of shame, arguing that the moral novel of the mid-eighteenth century neither negates nor contains the power of amatory fiction but illustrates the inability of “virtue rewarded” to resolve the tensions within eighteenth-century fiction and the representation of female subjectivity. Chapter 1 argues that Behn’s amatory fiction, Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684), The Fair Jilt (1688), and The History of the Nun (1689), resist the culture of shame and guilt surrounding the sexually available, desiring, and dangerous woman, blurring the lines between the moral and the immoral and questions the conduct manual’s insistence that virtuous behavior liberates the female subject. -
The Absence of America on the Early Modern Stage by Gavin R. Hollis A
The Absence of America on the Early Modern Stage by Gavin R. Hollis A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English Language and Literature) in The University of Michigan 2008 Doctoral Committee: Professor Valerie J. Traub, Chair Professor Michael C. Schoenfeldt Associate Professor Susan M. Juster Associate Professor Susan Scott Parrish © Gavin Hollis 2008 To my parents ii Acknowledgements In an episode of The Simpsons, Marge urges Bart not to make fun of graduate students because “they’ve just made a terrible life choice.” This may be true, but one of the many advantages of this “life choice” is that I have met, been inspired by, and become firm friends with an array of people on both sides of the pond. The first debt I owe is to my advisors at the University of Michigan, who have seen this project through its many stages of confusion and incoherence. Mike Schoenfeldt, Scotti Parrish, and Sue Juster have been supportive, critical, rigorous, inventive, and excellent company. My biggest debt of gratitude is owed however to Valerie Traub, the chair of my dissertation committee, whose influence on this project and has been, and I hope will continue to be, immense. I’m also indebted to faculty at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and at The Shakespeare Institute who have shaped me as a scholar before I made it these shores. I am especially grateful to Peter Holland, who, it is no exaggeration to say, taught me how to read Shakespeare. Thank you also to John Jowett, Drew Milne, and John Lennard.