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Aphra Behn | |
|---|---|
 Behn c. 1670 | |
| Born | Aphra Johnson (?) Canterbury, Kent, England |
| Baptised | 14 December 1640 |
| Died | 16 April 1689 (aged 48) London, England |
| Resting place | Westminster Abbey |
| Occupation(s) | Playwright, poet, prose writer, translator, spy |
| 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) |
| Website | |
| aphrabehn | |
Aphra Behn (/ˈæfrə bɛn/;[a] bapt. 14 December 1640[1][2] – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage. She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines such as John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. Behn wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, Behn declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming poem to the new king William III. She died shortly after.[3]
She is remembered in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own: "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds."[4] Her grave is not included in the Poets' Corner but lies in the East Cloister near the steps to the church.[5]
Her best-known works are Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave, sometimes described as an early novel, and the play The Rover.[6]
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
- ^ "Aphra Behn (1640–1689)". BBC. Retrieved 19 April 2017.
- ^ Britland, Karen (2 January 2021). "Aphra Behn's first marriage?". The Seventeenth Century. 36 (1): 33–53. doi:10.1080/0268117X.2019.1693420. ISSN 0268-117X. S2CID 214340536.
- ^ Janet Todd, "Behn, Aphra (1640?–1689)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
- ^ Woolf, Virginia (1929). A Room of One's Own. New York: Harcourt Brace. p. 69. OCLC 326933.
- ^ "Westminster Abbey". Westminster Abbey. 2015. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
- ^ Behn, Aphra (1998). The Rover: The Feigned Courtesans; The Lucky Chance; The Emperor of the Moon. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-283451-5.