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English 245 with Dr.
Gary Gutchess |
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Course Lessons 2. Beowulf 1 3. Beowulf 2 4. Middle Ages 5. Romance 6. Sir Gawain 7. Malory 9. Wife of Bath 11. Biblical Drama 12. Play of Mankind 14. Thomas More 15. Philip Sidney 16. Print Culture 17. Walter Raleigh 18. Twelfth Night 1 19. Twelfth Night 2 20. Civil War 22. Aphra Behn 23. Reading Papers 24. Gulliver 25. Rape of the Lock 27. New God 28. Revolution
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***** 22. Aphra Behn ***** |
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READINGS FOR THIS LESSON
It Takes a Woman
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NOTES AND
COMMENTARY Courtly writers in the
17th and 18th centuries took further the exploration of
sexuality begun in medieval romance. Feminism can be said to
have begun in this period, not in popular writing
(certainly not in Protestant or religious writing) but
in coterie writing, private circulation of manuscripts. Aphra Behn
(1640-1689) and other aristocratic
writers shared a commitment that women’s intellectual and spiritual
abilities, if not their historical accomplishments, were
equal to men’s and ought to be given equal
encouragement, granted equal voice.
Behn as narrator insists on the
truth of her story. She may in fact have been the daughter of
a late-intended
lieutenant-governor of
Surinam, so
she could have been present at events she describes. In
any case, she repeatedly assures the reader that she was an
“eyewitness” to most of the story, and the rest she
fills in “from the mouth of the chief actor,” Oroonoko
himself, or his French assistant. Because Oroonoko was sold to
her own
overseer, she came to know him, to establish
friendship and trust—and eventually to become the “female pen to
celebrate his fame.” We take the story to be true,
despite unrealistic details like Oroonoko's admiration
by the men he sold into slavery.
Behn seems complicit in the white men’s crime, and yet she is sympathetic to Oroonoko: “Like him, she arrives a stranger in Surinam but is immediately recognized as superior to the local inhabitants; like him, she appears a shining marvel when she travels to the Indian village; and like his words, hers are always truthful. . . . [A]s the story moves forward, narrator and hero polish each other’s fame” (Gallaher, Nobody’s Story, 68).
To Behn the royalist,
Oroonoko's tragedy is reminiscent of the execution of
Charles I and powerlessness of
James II
who fled from the
Glorious Revolution of 1688, the same year as the
publication of Behn's book. Like many 17th
and 18th century writers, Behn in the end puts herself as writer in a position of
final and immortalizing authority: “Yet, I hope, the
reputation of my pen is considerable enough to make his
glorious name to survive all ages, with that of the
brave, the beautiful, and the constant Imoinda.” She is
attesting to the end of the era of kings.
The characterization of Oroonoko is part of the 17th and 18th interest in the basic nature of human beings. Oroonoko and Imoinda, along with their vast European sophistication (Oroonoko is learned in many arts and sciences and speaks several languages), are classic models of the “noble savage.” This text belongs to a tradition of commentaries and satires on the human condition as European “civilization” has corrupted it, versus “the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin.” Behn's lying English governor, for example, parallels Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost. "The Indians, believing only death would keep a man from his word, mourned for the death of the governor who promised to come; when he finally showed up, not dead, they asked: “what name they had for a man who promised a thing he did not do? The governor told them, such a man was a liar, which was a word of infamy to a gentleman. Then one of them replied, ‘Governor, you are a liar, and guilty of that infamy.’ They have a native justice which knows no fraud, and they understand no vice, or cunning, but when they are taught by the white men.”
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Left: poet, playwright, journalist Mrs. Aphra Behn (1640-1689)
Oroonoko the book
William Blake "A negro hung by the ribs from the gallows" (1792) indicates the growth of abolitionism in the 18th century.
Oronooko was later made into a stage play, as shown in this flier from 1776. (In the play, Imoinda is white.)
Mrs. Behn's portrait cir. 1675 by Mary Beale, a renowned portrait painter of the the 17th century. |
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OTHER RESOURCES & AMUSEMENTS
Aphra Behn at
Luminarium includes a list of links to works: Aphra Behn Society homepage U Texas Aphra Behn: http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/rww02/AphraBehn/index.htm
PBS Online: Africans in America:
Women writers from England |
Students are not examined on these "other resources and amusements." However, if you know of an excellent website that would wonderfully complement this lesson, please send it to Dr. G. If he adopts it in his list, extra course credit will be awarded. |
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ASSIGNMENTS FOR THIS LESSON The lesson includes both a quiz and a journal writing assignment to be submitted on the interactive course site at SUNY Learning Network. See General instructions on Journaling for this course. For a sample journal, see Dr. G's 2007 Brit Lit 1 Journal. Journal Write for an hour (or more if you have time). Summarize the readings or make notes you will find useful on the final essay Some other journaling ideas for today include:
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Behn's grave in Westminster Abbey |
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Oroonoko
