Perhaps the perfect thing to read after Kafka's The Trial, I found this discomforting and curious by turns, the author and the story both are slippery, the boundaries between reportage, myth and fiction unclear and maybe unimportant (in the finest traditions of fiction).Īphra Behn herself is a mysterious person, presumed to have been born in Kent, maybe Canterbury, it is debated who her parents were though it is a strong probability that she had some. In this way, she appears to refute the notion which reigned at that time that Africans were inferior to whites, and in that sense, I suppose, her work can be seen as an early example of anti-racism. While the story displays signs of white superiority by unveiling the peculiarities of life in the New World - a place where whites enjoyed many rights while other races were seen as inferior - Behn has a very positive view of the main character of the book and often stresses that he is much nobler than many Europeans. One point - although the language and sentiments expressed in this novel are certainly racist by today's standards, it's important to remember it was written in 1688, when the slave trade was at its height and Africans were viewed by many whites as mere commodities. Despite this, it was interesting to read a novel that's remained more or less relevant for over 300 years, and which paved the way for many later authors of the eighteenth century. I went into it with low expectations - I've never enjoyed a single book that was published before 'Pride and Prejudice' - so I wasn't surprised to find myself praying for it to end by the eleventh page. I read this book because I was interested to see what Behn - the first known professional female writer - had to offer. She was, as Edmund Gosse remarked, 'the George Sand of the Restoration,' and she lived the Bohemian life in London in the seventeenth century as George Sand lived it in Paris in the nineteenth. Her success depended upon her ability to write like a man.'. catered habitually to the lowest and most depraved of human inclinations.
furiously resented.' She was, as Felix Shelling said, 'a very gifted woman, compelled to write for bread in an age in which literature. for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." Vita Sackville-West called Behn 'an inhabitant of Grub Street with the best of them. Woolf wrote, "All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn. In author Virginia Woolf's reckoning, Behn's total career is more important than any particular work it produced. Along with Delarivier Manley and Eliza Haywood, she is sometimes referred to as part of "The fair triumvirate of wit." Her writing contributed to the amatory fiction genre of British literature. Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers.
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