Aphra Behn facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Aphra Behn
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Behn c. 1670
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| Born |
Aphra Johnson (?)
Canterbury, Kent, England
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| Baptised | 14 December 1640 |
| Died | 16 April 1689 (aged 48) London, England
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| Resting place | Westminster Abbey |
| Occupation | Playwright, poet, prose writer, translator |
| Writing career | |
| Language | Early Modern English |
| Genre | Novel, roman a clef |
| Literary movement | Restoration literature, Restoration comedy |
| Years active | 1664-1689 |
| Notable works | Oroonoko The Rover Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister |
| Spouse |
Johan Behn
(m. 1664) |
Aphra Behn (/ˈæfrə bɛn/; bapt. 14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English writer who lived during the Restoration era. This was a time in England when the monarchy was brought back after a period of civil war. Aphra Behn was a playwright, poet, and translator.
She was one of the first English women to earn her living solely by writing. This was a big deal because it broke down many cultural barriers for women. She became a role model for other female writers who came after her.
Aphra Behn started from humble beginnings and eventually caught the attention of King Charles II. He even hired her as a secret agent, or spy, in Antwerp. After she returned to London, she faced some financial difficulties. She then started writing plays for the stage. She was part of a group of famous writers and thinkers of her time. Behn often used the pen name Astrea for her writings.
During a time of political unrest, she wrote some pieces that got her into legal trouble. After this, she focused more on writing stories and translating books. She was a strong supporter of the royal family. She passed away shortly after refusing to write a poem welcoming the new king, William III.
Virginia Woolf, another famous writer, once said about Aphra Behn: "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." Aphra Behn is buried in Westminster Abbey, but not in the famous "Poets' Corner." Her grave is in the East Cloister.
Her most famous works include Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave, which is sometimes called an early novel, and the play The Rover.
Contents
Aphra Behn's Life and Work
Her Early Life
We don't know a lot about Aphra Behn's early life. She might have kept some details secret on purpose. One story says she was born to a barber named John Amis and his wife Amy. Sometimes, she is called Aphra Amis Behn. Another story suggests her parents were named Cooper.
A book from 1696 says she was born to Bartholomew Johnson, a barber, and Elizabeth Denham, who was a wet-nurse (someone who breastfeeds and cares for another's child). Colonel Thomas Colepeper, who claimed to know her as a child, wrote that she was born in "Sturry or Canterbury" to a Mr. Johnson and had a sister named Frances. Another writer, Anne Finch, said Behn was born in Wye in Kent, and was "Daughter to a Barber."
One version of her life says she traveled with Bartholomew Johnson to the English colony of Surinam (which is now called Suriname). It's said that he died on the journey, and his wife and children stayed in the country for some months. There is no clear proof of this trip. During this time, Behn said she met an enslaved African leader. His story became the basis for her famous work, Oroonoko. It's also possible she worked as a spy in the colony. There is no clear evidence that Oroonoko was a real person or that a slave revolt like the one in her story actually happened.
Because so little is known for sure, one writer, Germaine Greer, said Behn "has scratched herself out." Another biographer, Janet Todd, noted that Behn "is not so much a woman to be unmasked as an unending combination of masks." This means she was a very mysterious person. Her name doesn't appear in tax or church records. During her life, she was also known as Ann Behn, Mrs. Behn, agent 160, and Astrea.
How She Learned to Write
Aphra Behn's writings show she was educated, but it's not clear how she got her education. At that time, it was unusual for women to go to school formally. Some wealthy girls might have had tutors, but this was probably not the case for Aphra Behn.
Many European women in the 1600s taught themselves. This often happened if their parents allowed them to read and study. Behn likely spent time copying poems and other writings. This not only inspired her but also helped her learn. She was not alone in teaching herself; other notable women, like the first female medical doctor Dorothea Leporin, also educated themselves.
In some of her plays, Aphra Behn showed that she disagreed with the idea that women shouldn't be formally educated. However, she also seemed to think that learning Greek and Latin was not as important as some authors believed. She might have been influenced by another writer, Francis Kirkman, who also didn't know Greek or Latin. He said he didn't use "hard cramping Words" that would make readers stop and think. Later in her life, Aphra Behn shared similar ideas about formal education.
Her Career as a Writer
After her supposed return to England from Surinam in 1664, Behn might have married Johan Behn. He may have been a merchant from Germany or the Netherlands. He either died or they separated soon after 1664. From then on, she used "Mrs. Behn" as her professional name.
Behn may have been raised Catholic. She once said she was "designed for a nun." Having many Catholic friends would have caused suspicion during the anti-Catholic feelings of the 1680s. She supported the King and the royal family. As political parties formed, Behn became a supporter of the Tory party.
By 1666, Behn had connections to the King's court. The Second Anglo-Dutch War had started in 1665 between England and the Netherlands. She was hired as a spy for King Charles II in Antwerp. This is the first well-documented record of her activities. Her code name was Astrea, which she later used for her writings. Her main job was to get close to William Scot, whose father had been executed for plotting against the King. Scot was thought to be willing to spy for England. Behn arrived in Bruges in July 1666.
However, Behn's spy work was not profitable. The cost of living was very high, and she was not prepared. She had to pawn her jewelry. King Charles was slow to pay her, if he paid at all. She had to borrow money to return to London. She spent a year asking the King for payment, but she was not successful. It's possible she was never paid by the crown. An order was issued for her arrest because of her debts, but there is no proof she was arrested or went to prison.
Because of her debts and her husband's death, Behn started writing for theatre companies. She had written poetry before this, but now she needed to earn a living. As one writer said, "Mrs. Behn wrote for a livelihood. Playwriting was her refuge from starvation." The theatres that had been closed during Cromwell's rule were now reopening under King Charles II. Plays became popular again.
In 1668, plays written by women started to be performed in London. Behn's first play, The Forc'd Marriage, was a romantic story about arranged marriages. It was performed in September 1670 and ran for six nights, which was considered a good run for a new writer. Six months later, her play The Amorous Prince was also successful. Behn used her plays to comment on the problems of arranged marriages.
Behn did not hide that she was a woman. In fact, she made it a point. When her play The Dutch Lover was performed in 1673, some critics disliked it just because a woman had written it. Behn bravely responded to these critics in a section called Epistle to the Reader. She argued that women were held back because they were not allowed to get an education, not because they lacked ability.
After her third play failed, Behn disappeared from public records for three years. Some people think she traveled again, possibly as a spy. She then started writing more comedies, which were more successful. In 1676–77, she published Abdelazer, The Town-Fopp, and The Rover. In early 1678, Sir Patient Fancy was published. These successful plays led to many attacks on Behn. People criticized her personal life and the morals in her plays. She was even accused of copying The Rover. Behn fought back against these attacks in the introductions to her published plays. In the introduction to Sir Patient Fancy, she argued that she was being unfairly targeted because she was a woman.
By the late 1670s, Behn was one of England's leading playwrights. She was one of the most productive writers in Britain, second only to the official Poet Laureate, John Dryden. Her plays were performed often, and the King himself attended them. Behn became friends with other famous writers of her time. The Rover became a favorite at the King's court.
King Charles II had no children who could inherit the throne, which caused a long political crisis. Behn became very involved in the debate about who should be the next king. In 1678, there were rumors of a "Popish Plot" that suggested the King should be replaced by his Roman Catholic brother, James. Two political parties formed: the Whigs wanted to prevent James from becoming king, while the Tories believed the succession should not be changed. Behn supported the Tory position. Between 1681 and 1682, she wrote five plays to criticize the Whigs. Behn often used her writings to attack the Whigs in Parliament. The London audience, who mostly supported the Tories, attended her plays in large numbers.
However, King Charles II issued an order for Behn's arrest when she criticized James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, the King's son, in a part of her play Romulus and Hersilia (1682). King Charles II eventually ended Parliament, and James II became king in 1685.
Final Years and Death
In her last four years, Aphra Behn's health declined. She also faced poverty and debt. Despite this, she continued to write a lot, even though it became hard for her to hold a pen.
As fewer people went to the theatre, plays mostly showed older works to save money. Still, Behn staged The Luckey Chance in 1686. When the play was criticized, she wrote a long and strong defense of women writers in the introduction when the play was published the next year. Her play The Emperor of the Moon was performed and published in 1687. It became one of her most popular plays.
In the 1680s, she started publishing prose works (stories and novels). Her first prose work might have been the three-part Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, published anonymously between 1684 and 1687. These stories were inspired by a real-life scandal. Love-Letters was very popular and was printed many times before 1800.
She published five prose works under her own name: La Montre: or, the Lover's Watch (1686), The Fair Jilt (1688), Oroonoko (1688), The History of the Nun (1689), and The Lucky Mistake (1689). Oroonoko, her most famous prose work, was published less than a year before she died. It tells the story of an enslaved man named Oroonoko and his love, Imoinda. This story might have been based on Behn's travels to Surinam twenty years earlier.
She also translated books from French and Latin. In her final days, she translated "Of Trees" ("Sylva"), the sixth and final book of Abraham Cowley's Six Books of Plants.
Aphra Behn died on 16 April 1689. She was buried in the East Cloister of Westminster Abbey. The words on her tombstone say: "Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defence enough against Mortality." She once said that she had lived a "life dedicated to pleasure and poetry."
Legacy and Importance
After Aphra Behn died, new female playwrights like Delarivier Manley, Mary Pix, Susanna Centlivre, and Catherine Trotter recognized Behn as an important writer. She had opened up a public space for women writers.
For a long time, until the mid-1900s, Behn was often seen as a minor writer whose work was not very important. Only a few critics believed she was an important writer.
Many biographers have written about Behn's life, including Virginia Woolf. Woolf's book A Room of One's Own helped bring attention to Behn's role in women's writing.
Of Behn's many writings, only Oroonoko was seriously studied by literary experts for a while. This book, published in 1688, is considered one of the first novels in English that spoke out against slavery and promoted human rights. It was later made into a play and performed throughout the 1700s. It was also translated into French.
Since the 1970s, feminist critics and writers have re-examined Behn's works. Behn was rediscovered as a very important female writer by many scholars. This led to her works being reprinted. The Rover was republished in 1967, Oroonoko in 1973, and other works later.
Critics of Behn's poetry often focus on themes of gender, being a woman, pleasure, and love. Feminist critics especially look at how Behn included female pleasure in her poetry, which was a very new and bold idea at the time she was writing.
Today, the Canterbury Commemoration Society is working to raise a statue of Aphra Behn in her hometown of Canterbury.
Works
Plays
- The Forc'd Marriage (performed 1670; published 1671)
- The Amorous Prince (1671)
- The Dutch Lover (1673)
- Abdelazer (performed 1676; published 1677)
- The Town-Fopp (1676)
- The Rover (1677)
- Sir Patient Fancy (1678)
- The Feign'd Curtizans (1679)
- The Young King (performed 1679; published 1683)
- The Second Part of the Rover (performed 1680; published 1681)
- The False Count (performed 1681; published 1682)
- The Roundheads (performed 1681; published 1682)
- The City-Heiress (1682)
- Prologue and epilogue to anonymously published Romulus and Hersilia (1682)
- The Luckey Chance (performed 1686; published 1687)
- The Emperor of the Moon (1687)
Plays published after her death
- The Widdow Ranter (performed 1689; published 1690)
- The Younger Brother, or, the Amorous Jilt (1696)
Poetry Collections
- Poems upon Several Occasions (1684)
- Miscellany, Being a Collection of Poems by Several Hands (1685)
- A Miscellany of New Poems by Several Hands (1688)
Prose (Stories and Novels)
- Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684–1687), published anonymously in three parts, some debate if she wrote all of it
- La Montre: or, the Lover's Watch (1686), a loose translation/adaptation of a novel by Bonnecorse
- The Fair Jilt (1688)
- Oroonoko (1688)
- The History of the Nun: or, the Fair Vow-Breaker (1689)
- The Lucky Mistake (1689)
Prose published after her death, some debate if she wrote them
- The Adventure of the Black Lady
- The Court of the King of Bantam
- The Unfortunate Bride
- The Unfortunate Happy Lady
- The Unhappy Mistake
- The Wandring Beauty
Translations
- Ovid: "A Paraphrase on Oenone to Paris", in John Dryden's and Jacob Tonson's Ovid's Epistles (1680).
- Paul Tallement: A Voyage to the Island of Love (1684), published with Poems upon Several Occasions.
- La Rochefoucauld: Reflections on Morality, or, Seneca Unmasqued (1685).
- Paul Tallement: Lycidus; or, the Lover in Fashion (1688).
- Fontenelle: The History of Oracles (1688).
- Fontenelle: A Discovery of New Worlds (1688).
- Jean-Baptiste de Brilhac: Agnes de Castro, or, the Force of Generous Love (1688).
- Abraham Cowley: "Of Trees" ("Sylva"), in Six Books of Plants (1689).
Images for kids
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Behn circa 1670
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A sketch of Aphra Behn by George Scharf from a portrait believed to be lost (1873)
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Portrait by Mary Beale
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Title page of the first edition of Oroonoko (1688)
See also
In Spanish: Aphra Behn para niños
