Further Reading

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Bibliography

O'Donnell, Mary Ann. Aphra Behn: An Annotated Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources. New York: Garland Publishing, 1986, 557 p.

Catalogue of Behn's works and critical commentaries on her writings; includes an introduction that summarizes her career.

Biography

Cameron, W. J. New Light on Aphra Behn. Auckland, New Zealand: University of Auckland, 1961, 106 p.

Cameron summarizes the study as "an investigation into the facts and fictions surrounding [Behn's] journey to Surinam in 1663 and her activities as a spy in Flanders in 1666."

Duffy, Maureen. The Passionate Shepherdess: Aphra Behn, 1640-89. London: Jonathan Cape, 1977, 324 p.

Account of Behn's life based on her works and the scant extant documents relating to or by her. Duffy examines Behn's works in so far as they offer insight into her life.

Goreau, Angeline. Reconstructing Aphra: A Social Biography of Aphra Behn. New York: The Dial Press, 1980, 339 p.

Portrays Behn as a woman driven by contradictory personality traits: independence and emotional neediness.

Criticism

Boehrer, Bruce Thomas. "Behn's 'Disappointment' and Nashe's 'Choise of Valentines': Pornographic Poetry and the Influence of Anxiety." Essays in Literature XVI, No. 2 (Fall 1989): 172-87.

Concludes that "The Disappointment" "marginalizes the male experience of anxiety and humiliation [resulting from sexual impotence], concentrating upon the ironies whereby manly poetry is made."

Greer, Germaine. "Montague Summers and The Works of Aphra Behn." In The Uncollected Verse of Aphra Behn, edited by Germaine Greer, pp. 1-11. Stump Cross, England: Stump Cross Books, 1989.

Chastises Montague Summers for poor scholarship in his six-volume edition of The Works of Aphra Behn, particularly pointing out errors related to Summer's treatment of Behn's poetry. Greer states: "It is typical of Behn's chequered literary fortunes that she should have found an editor shadier than herself, who divided his intellectual attention unevenly between satanism, theatricals, and literature, in descending order of importance, and that we should be indebted to his eccentricity for the only edition of her works that we have."

Kretsch, Donna Raske. "Sisters across the Atlantic: Aphra Behn and Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz." Women's Studies 21, No. 3 (1992): 361-79.

Compares Behn and Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz, a Mexican nun and contemporary of Behn's, finding similar feminist attitudes in their works. In the course of the essay, Kretsch briefly discusses Behn's poem "To Alexis in Answer to His Poem against Fruition."

"Mrs. Behn." Littell's Living Age, No. 631 (28 June 1856): 800-11.

Biographical and critical overview of Behn's career reprinted from The Dublin University Magazine. The critic attests to the variety and profusion of poetry produced by Behn, while expressing some doubt about the quality of her verse, and proceeds to quote some notable poems by her.

Mermin, Dorothy. "Women Becoming Poets: Katherine Philips, Aphra Behn, Anne Finch." E.L.H. 57, No. 2 (Summer 1990): 335-55.

Attributing the scarcity of female poets in England before the nineteenth century to "cultural suppression," Mermin examines and compares the verse of Philips, Behn, and Finch in order to "clarify both the causes of the prevailing silence and the conditions under which it could be broken."

O'Donnell, Mary Ann. "A Verse Miscellany of Aphra Behn: Bodleian Library MS Firth c.16." In English Manuscript Studies, 1100-1700, Volume 2, edited by Peter Beal and Jeremy Griffiths, pp. 189-227. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990.

Asserts that Behn authored and transcribed some of the verses in a Bodleian Library manuscript consisting of poems by various authors. According to O'Donnell, this manuscript "reminds us of how much we have yet to learn about Aphra Behn and her circle."

Robertson, Eric S. "Katherine Philips—Aphra Behn—The Duchess of Newcastle—Early Minor Writers." In his English Poetesses: A Series of Biographies, with Illustrative Extracts, pp. 1-36. London: Cassell & Company, Limited, 1883.

Delivers a harsh assessment of Behn's poetry and plays, dismissing all but two of her poems, "A Song" and "On the Death of Waller." Offering a partial explanation for what he perceives as the unsavory quality of her poetry, Robertson blames prevailing literary trends and Behn's position as an outsider to respected society.

Rogal, Samuel J. "Aphra Behn." In Critical Survey of Poetry, English Language Series, edited by Frank N. Magill, pp. 123-31. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Salem Press, 1982.

Overview of Behn's verse. Rogal assesses her status as a poet, stating: "Critics may defend Behn's talent for drama and prose fiction as worthy of recognition beside that of her male contemporaries. As a writer of verse, however, she cannot claim a place among the poets of the first rank."

Stiebel, Arlene. "Not since Sappho: The Erotic in Poems of Katherine Philips and Aphra Behn." In Homosexuality in Renaissance and Enlightenment England: Literary Representations in Historical Context, edited by Claude J. Summers, pp. 153-64. New York: The Haworth Press, Inc., 1992.

Interprets "The Disappointment" as an account of rape and argues that Behn's verse manipulated literary conventions to allow her to discuss taboo subjects such as lesbianism without alerting the audience to any breach of decorum.


Additional coverage of Behn's life and career if contained in the following sources published by Gale Research: Discovering Authors; Drama Criticism, Vol. 4; Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800, Vol. 1; and World Literature Criticism.

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