Download or read book The Secret Life of Aphra Behn written by Janet Todd and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-09-19 with total page 830 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn; for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds,' said Virginia Woolf. Yet that tomb, in Westminster Abbey, records one of the few uncontested facts about this Restoration playwright, poet, novelist and spy: the date of her death, 16 April 1689. For the rest secrecy and duplicity are almost the key to her life. She loved codes, making and breaking them; writing her life becomes a decoding of a passionate but playful woman. Janet Todd draws on documents she has rediscovered in the Dutch archives, and on Behn's own writings, to tell a story of court, diplomatic and sexual intrigue, and of the rise from humble origins of the first woman to earn her living as a professional writer. Aphra Behn's first notable employment was as a Royal spy in Holland; she had probably also spied in Surinam. It was not until she was in her thirties that she published the first of the 19 plays and other works which established her fame (though not riches) among her 'good, sweet, honey-candied readers'. Many of her works were openly erotic, indeed as frank as anything by her friends Wycherley and Rochester. Some also offered an inside view of court and political intrigues, and Todd reveals the historical scandals and legal cases behind some of Behn's most famous 'fictions'.
Download or read book Admired and Understood written by Michael L. Stapleton and published by University of Delaware Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Admired and Understood analyzes Behn's only pure verse collection, Poems upon Several Occasions (1684), and situates her in her literary milieu as a poet. Behn's book demonstrates her desire for acceptance in her literary culture, to be admired and understood, as she puts its, the antitheses of what many surmise from reading her other works - that she saw herself primarily as a guerilla critic of her culture's views on race, class, and gender. The introduction to Admired and Understood argues that her colleagues thought of her as poet first, rather than as a dramatist, reviews current criticism about Behn, and provides a brief overview of late seventeenth-century poetical theory. The first chapter explains the intricately interwoven structure of Behn's collection. The next two chapters concern intertextual linkages between Behn and Abraham Cowley, as well as the influence of Thomas Creech's translations of Horace, Theocritus, and Lucretius on her poetics. The ensuing chapters concern Behn's response to Rochester's libertine aesthetic, a close reading of On a Juniper-Tree (a poem central to her collection), Katherine Philips as Behn's most important predecessor as a woman writin
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn written by Derek Hughes and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-11-25 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Rover written by Aphra Behn and published by Joe Books Ltd. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The magic of Naples during Carnival inspires love between a disparate group of local citizens and visiting Englishmen.
Download or read book The Works of Aphra Behn written by Aphra Behn and published by . This book was released on 1915 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Aphra Behn Studies written by Janet Todd and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-03-28 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aphra Behn was England's first professional woman writer, but her status as a major author has only recently become clear. Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, Behn was denigrated for her 'unwomanly' subject matter and intellectual immodesty. In the twentieth century she has been increasingly viewed as an important dramatist and poet of the Restoration and a founder of the English novel. This book sets Behn firmly in an historical context of political factions, theatre developments and colonial encounters, and includes chapters on each of the genres in which she wrote: drama, fiction, poetry and translation, and on other aspects of her life, from her publishing struggles to her involvement in American slavery. It is an important resource for those studying seventeenth-century English literature and drama, and to those interested in the development of women's writing.
Download or read book Histories and novels written by Aphra Behn and published by . This book was released on 1871 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book From Aphra Behn to Fun Home written by Carey Purcell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-12-04 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theatre has long been considered a feminine interest for which women consistently purchase the majority of tickets, while the shows they are seeing typically are written and brought to the stage by men. Furthermore, the stories these productions tell are often about men, and the complex leading roles in these shows are written for and performed by male actors. Despite this imbalance, the feminist voice presses to be heard and has done so with more success than ever before. In From Aphra Behn to Fun Home: A Cultural History of Feminist Theatre, Carey Purcell traces the evolution of these important artists and productions over several centuries. After examining the roots of feminist theatre in early Greek plays and looking at occasional works produced before the twentieth century, Purcell then identifies the key players and productions that have emerged over the last several decades. This book covers the heyday of the second wave feminist movement—which saw the growth of female-centric theatre groups—and highlights the work of playwrights such as Caryl Churchill, Pam Gems, and Wendy Wasserstein. Other prominent artists discussed here include playwrights Paula Vogel Lynn and Tony-award winning directors Garry Hynes and Julie Taymor. The volume also examines diversity in contemporary feminist theatre—with discussions of such playwrights as Young Jean Lee and Lynn Nottage—and a look toward the future. Purcell explores the very nature of feminist theater—does it qualify if a play is written by a woman or does it just need to feature strong female characters?—as well as how notable activist work for feminism has played a pivotal role in theatre. An engaging survey of female artists on stage and behind the scenes, From Aphra Behn to Fun Home will be of interest to theatregoers and anyone interested in the invaluable contributions of women in the performing arts.
Download or read book Oroonoko the Rover and Other Works written by Aphra Behn and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2003-08-28 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Prince Oroonoko’s passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko’s noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn’s visit to Surinam, Oroonoko (1688) reflects the author’s romantic view of Native Americans as simple, superior peoples ‘in the first state of innocence, before men knew how to sin’. The novel also reveals Behn’s ambiguous attitude to African slavery – while she favoured it as a means to strengthen England’s power, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality.
Download or read book Shakespeare Aphra Behn and the Canon written by Lizbeth Goodman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-08-21 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A clear introduction to the idea of the canon, exploring the process by which certain works, and not others, receive high cultural status. The work of Shakespeare and Aphra Behn is used to illustrate and challenge this process.
Download or read book The Poems of Aphra Behn written by Janet Todd and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-14 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was a popular poet, author of the influential novel "Oroonoko" and one of the most successful dramatists of the Restoration theatre. This book contains a selection of her poetry.
Download or read book Rereading Aphra Behn written by Heidi Hutner and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aphra Behn was the first Englishwoman to earn her living from writing. This collection of critical essays explores the different genres in Behn's canon, including her plays, criticism, fiction and poetry, from a wide variety of feminist theoretical approaches.
Download or read book The Novels of Mrs Aphra Behn written by Aphra Behn and published by London : G. Routledge. This book was released on 1905 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Critical Fortunes of Aphra Behn written by Janet Todd and published by Camden House. This book was released on 1998 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book The History of the Nun written by Aphra Behn and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The History of the Nun The Fair Vow-breaker by Aphra Behn Behn's remarkable work in which she analyzes the retribution of breaking the vows, particularly the religious vows undertaken by nuns. The tale, claimed to be true, focuses on a nun who was lured by the charms of the world into forsaking the nunnery. Fate comes down hard upon her as she has to face the troubles and threats posed by the outside world as well. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.
Download or read book The Passionate Shepherdess written by Maureen Duffy and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2000-07-20 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The barest facts of Aphra Behn's life are astonishing in themselves. Born in 1640 she had by her mid-twenties, travelled to South America, returned to England, been married and widowed. She was sent by Charles II to Antwerp as a spy, then on her return was imprisoned for debt. Once out of prison she chose to stay independent; and moved on to become one of the most successful dramatists of the Restoration theatre, author of one of the most popular novels of the period, Oroonoko, and a poet of such reputation that men at the time were moved to consider seriously the possibility of a 'female laureate'.Yet Aphra Behn's personal and literary achievements have suffered an eclipse unparalleled in literary history. Her lively wit and sexual candour provided an east target for the prudish scorn and criticism of late 17th-century England. She had asserted her position - second perhaps to Dryden - among 'the giants of wit and sense' in her age, as Defoe was to say later; but subsequent critics were to pass off her work as 'a reproach to her womanhood and a disgrace even to the licentious age in which she lived.'With scrupulous care Maureen Duffy has lifted the tarnished image of Aphra Behn from the muddle of sensational legend that has for too long obscured her true achievement - as an artist and as the pioneer who opened up the whole field of literature to women.
Download or read book The Amorous Prince written by Aphra Behn and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2019-03-11 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main plot concerns Prince Fredrick's erotic pursuits, chiefly with the sister (Cloris) and fiancée (Laura) of his best friend and courtier, Curtius.
