The Disappointment (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Aphra Behn
- First Published: 1684
- Type of Work: Narrative
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Love or romance, Sex or sexuality, Gender roles, Women’s issues, Seventeenth century, Women, Impotence
The Poem
“The Disappointment” is a narrative poem in lyric form. It consists of fourteen numbered stanzas of ten lines each, and it tells the story of a single romantic tryst. It is written from the woman’s point of view, explaining her frustration or disappointment when her young “Swain” is unable to make good on his promise.
Sexual dysfunction was a subject of ridicule in erotic poetry long before it became a subject of concern in advice columns. There is a classical precedent for “The Disappointment” in the last book of Ovid’s Amores...
[The entire page is 1474 words long]
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