Aphra Behn: The Comedies

Kate Aughterson

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781350317925
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Critique littéraire moderne

Kate Aughterson provides readers with an approachable and fascinating critical guide to the dramatic works of an important seventeenth-century woman writer. Aughterson analyses Aphra Behn's abilities as a playwright, showing particularly how she skillfully employs comic and dramatic conventions to radical ends, and how she forces her audience to engage with issues about gender and sexuality whilst retaining her witty and accessible style. Chapters in the first part of the book provide close readings of the comedies, addressing such topics as openings, endings, character types, staging, and politics and society. In the second part, Aughterson not only examines Behn's literary career and the Restoration contexts of her plays, but also looks at some sample criticism and explores Behn's drama as performance.

PART 1

ANALYSING
BEHN’S COMEDIES

1

Openings

Plays tend to open in the middle of a conversation, or piece of action (in classical dramatic theory referred to as in medias res, literally, in the middle of things). There are good reasons for this, all of them signalling how distinct drama is from other literary forms, such as the traditional novel. Drama is predicated on action: for the plot to move forward, for characters to clash, to conflict and to come together during the short space of the performance time, the narrative and dramatic structure must foreground action and conflict. The audience needs to be involved and engaged from the beginning. The best way of doing this is to plunge into the middle of a situation encapsulating the themes and conflicts of the whole play. We are then ready to recognise such themes as they develop, and often encouraged, from this very early stage, to take sides.

In studying a play, we should remember that it is a performance, a three-dimensional production, not just a flat text on the page. To help think in this way, it is important that you always ask yourself how the words work in a theatrical context. How are the actors moving around the stage (if at all)? How do costume, setting and lighting affect meaning? Are these explicit in the stage directions, or implicit in the dialogue? What is the relationship between audience and characters, and how does this affect our interpretation of the scene? What is the significance of the scenic structure?

Let us now move on to consider the openings of three of Behn’s comedies. How, why and to what extent does she engage our allegiances and opinions in these opening scenes?

* * *

The Rover opens thus:

[Act 1, scene i]

A chamber

Enter Florinda and Hellena.

Florinda. What an impertinent thing is a young girl bred in a nunnery! How full of questions! Prithee, no more, Hellena, I have told thee more than thou understand’st already.
Hellena. The more’s my grief; I would fain know as much as you, which makes me so inquisitive; nor is’t enough I know you’re a lover, unless you tell me too who ’tis you sigh for.	5
Florinda. When you’re a lover, I’ll think you fit for a secret of that nature.
Hellena. ’Tis true, I never was a lover yet; but I begin to have a shrewd guess what ’tis to be so, and fancy it very pretty to sigh, and sing, and blush, and wish, and dream and wish, and long and wish to see the man, and when I do, look pale and tremble, just as you did when my brother brought home the fine English colonel to see you – what do you call him? Don Belvile.	10
Florinda. Fie, Hellena.	15
Hellena. That blush betrays you. I am sure ’tis so; or is it Don Antonio, the viceroy’s son? Or perhaps the rich old Don Vincentio, whom my father designs you for a husband? Why do you blush again?
Florinda. With indignation; and how near soever my father thinks I am to marrying that hated object, I shall let him see I understand better what’s due to my beauty, birth and fortune, and more to my soul, than to obey those unjust commands.	20
Hellena. Now hang me, if I don’t love thee for that dear disobedience. I love mischief strangely, as most of our sex do, who are come to love nothing else. But tell me, dear Florinda, don’t you love that fine Inglese? For I vow, next to loving him myself, ’twill please me most that you do so, for he is so gay and so handsome.	25
Florinda. Hellena, a maid designed for a nun ought not to be so curious in a discourse of love.	30
Hellena. And dost thou think that ever I’ll be a nun? Or at least till I’m so old, I’m fit for nothing else: faith, no, sister; and that which
makes me long to know whether you love Belvile, is because I hope he has some mad companion or other that will spoil my devotion. Nay, I’m resolved to provide myself this Carnival, if there be e’er a handsome proper fellow of my humour above ground, though I ask first.	35
Florinda. Prithee be not so wild.
Hellena. Now you have provided yourself of a man, you take no care for poor me. Prithee tell me, what dost thou see about me that is unfit for love? Have I not a world of youth? A humour gay? A beauty passable? A vigour desirable? Well-shaped? Clean-limbed? Sweet-breathed? And sense enough to know how all these ought to be employed to the best advantage? Yes, I do, and will; therefore lay aside your hopes of my fortune by my being a devotee, and tell me how you came acquainted with this Belvile; for I perceive you knew him before he came to Naples.	40 45
Florinda. Yes, I knew him at the siege of Pamplona: he was then a colonel of French horse, who, when the town was ransacked, nobly treated my brother and myself, preserving us from all insolences; and I must own, besides great obligations, I have I know not what that pleads kindly for him about my heart, and will suffer no other to enter. But see, my brother. Enter Don Pedro, Stephano with a masking habit, and Callis.	50
Pedro. Good morrow, sister. Pray when saw you your lover Don Vincentio?	55
Florinda. I know not, sir – Callis, when was he here? – for I consider it so little, I know not when it was.
Pedro. I have a command from my father here to tell you you ought not to despise him, a man of so vast a fortune, and such a passion for you. – Stephano, my things. [Don Pedro] puts on his masking habit.	60
Florinda. A passion for me? ’Tis more than e’er I saw, or he had a desire should be known. I hate Vincentio, sir, and I would not have a man so dear to me as my brother follow the ill customs of our country, and make a slave of his sister; and, sir, my father’s will I’m sure you may divert.	65
Pedro. I know not how dear I am to you, but I wish only to be ranked in your esteem equal with the English colonel Belvile. Why do you frown and blush? Is there any guilt belongs to the name of that cavalier?
Florinda. I’ll not deny I value Belvile. When I was exposed to such dangers as the licensed lust of common soldiers threatened, when rage and conquest flew through the city, then Belvile, this criminal for my sake, threw himself into all dangers to save my honour: and will you not allow him my esteem?	70
Pedro. Yes, pay him what you will in honour; but you must consider Don Vincentio’s fortune, and the jointure he’ll make you.	75
Florinda. Let him consider my youth, beauty and fortune, which ought not to be thrown away on his age and jointure.
Pedro. ’Tis true, he’s not so young and fine a gentleman as that Belvile; but what jewels will that cavalier present you with? Those of his eyes and heart?	80
Hellena. And are those not better than any Don Vincentio has brought from the Indies?
Pedro. Why how now! Has your nunnery breeding taught you to understand the value of hearts and eyes?	85
Hellena. Better than to believe Vincentio’s deserve value from any woman: he may perhaps increase her bags, but not her family.
Pedro. This is fine! Go, up to your devotion: you are not designed for the conversation of lovers.
Hellena. (Aside) Nor saints, yet awhile, I hope. – Is’t not enough you make a nun of me, but you must cast my sister away too, exposing her to a worse confinement than a religious life?	90
Pedro. The girl’s mad!

(The Rover, 1, i, 1–93)

By the play’s opening in the middle of a conversation (signalled clearly by the exclamat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• General Editor’s Preface
• A Note on Editions
• Introduction
• Part 1: Analysing Behn’s Comedies
• Part 2: Context and Critics
• Further Reading
• Index