Further Reading
Biography
Cameron, W. J. New Light on Aphra Behn. Auckland, New Zealand: University of Auckland, 1961, 106 p.
Cameron summarizes this 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 for 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
Duffy, Maureen. Introduction to Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, by Aphra Behn, pp. v-xvii. New York: Penguin Books, Virago Press, 1987.
Comprehensive introduction to Behn's Love-Letters, where, as Duffy asserts, "We hear the first authorial female voice in English prose."
Gardiner, Judith Kegan. "The First English Novel: Aphra Behn's Love Letters, the Canon, and Women's Tastes." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 8, No. 2 (Fall, 1989): 201-22.
Assesses the role of Behn's Love-Letters in the history of the novel, focusing on "psychological paradigms" both in the work and in its historical context.
Gewirtz, Arthur. "The Comic Adaptations of Aphra Behn: Libertine Naturalism in Restoration Comedy." In his Restoration Adaptations of Early 17th Century Comedies, pp. 83-110. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982.
Summarizes most of Behn's notable plays, with a particular emphasis on the "libertine naturalism" of the typical rake (or male sexual predator) in Restoration comedy.
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 Summers for poor scholarship in his six-volume edition of The Works of Aphra Behn, particularly pointing out errors related to Summers' 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."
Guffey, George. "Aphra Behn's Oroonoko: Occasion and Accomplishment." In Two English Novelists: Aphra Behn and Anthony Trollope, Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, May 11, 1974, pp. 3-37. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1975.
Presents a realistic reading of the novel and asserts that in Oroonoko Behn "makes a strong argument for the absolute power of legitimate kings … [and] attempts to
gain the sympathy of her reader for James, who, at the time of the publication of the book, was in great danger of immanent deposition or wars."
Link, Frederick M. Introduction to The Rover, by Aphra Behn, pp. ix-xvi. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967.
Describes how Behn, in The Rover, created a skillful and witty comedy of intrigue out of the weighty and slowmoving play Thomaso by Thomas Killigrew. Link's introduction also includes a capsule summary of Behn's dramatic oeuvre while discussing at length the characters in The Rover.
——. Aphra Behn. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1968, 183 p.
General Overview of Behn's life and career
Morgan, Fidelis. "Aphra Behn-Astraea." In The Female Wits: Women Playwrights on the London Stage 1660-1720, pp. 12-23. London: Virago Press, 1981.
Surveys Behn's life and theatrical works.
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 commentary on her writing; includes an introduction that summarizes her career.
Schofield, Mary Anne, and Macheski, Cecilia, eds. Curtain Calls: British and American Women and the Theater 1660-1820. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1991, 403 p.
Includes essays by Deborah C. Payne, Frances M. Kavenik, Jessica Munns, Nancy Cotton, and Rose Zimbardo that explore various aspects of Behn's career as a playwright.
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, 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.
Todd, Janet. "'An Honour and Glory to our Sex': Aphra Behn," in her The Sign of Angellica: Women, Writing, and Fiction 1660-1800, pp. 69-83. London: Virago, 1989.
Surveys Behn's life and works and designates Love-Letters as her masterpiece. Todd also suggests that, "in a way all the works of Behn together teach a kind of acceptance of the absurdity of life."
Additional coverage of Behn is contained in the following sources published by Gale Research: DISCovering Authors, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 39: British Novelists, 1660-1800; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 80: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Dramatists; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 131: Seventeenth-Century British Nondramatic Poets; Drama Criticism, Vol. 4; and World Literature Criticism, 1500 to the Present.
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