Aphra Behn Summary

English poet, novelist, and playwright Aphra Behn (ca. 1640-1689) was the first of her gender to earn a living as a writer in the English language.Aphra Behn was a successful author at a time when few... Read more

Aphra Behn was one of the best and most successful comic writers in a great age of English comedy. If her plays are less polished than those of George Etherege and William Wycherley, it must be rememb... Read more

Woolf is one of the most prominent literary figures of twentieth-century English literature. Like her contemporary James Joyce, with whom she is often compared, Woolf is remembered as one of the most ... Read more

Here, Goreau traces the critical and popular reaction to some of Behn's works, focusing especially on the writer's criticism of the "property-marriage system" in her plays.... Read more

Duffy on the neglect of Behn: Literary survival is largely a matter of fashion and chance. No greater gods preside over it and we deceive ourselves if we think they do, that we have a just appraisa... Read more

In the following poem, Kendrick praises Behn in exalted terms, likening her to a goddess and declaring her verse superior to that of Orinda (Katherine Philips), Sappho, and even Ovid.  �... Read more

Vita Sackville-West was an English poet, novelist, biographer, and essayist. In the following excerpt, she judges whether Behn should more appropriately be considered a poet or a songwriter. Much h... Read more

In the following essay, Barash argues that Behn 's erotic poems contest "the heterosexual assumptions on which lovers' language is based. " Barash focuses primarily on the ... Read more

In the following excerpt, Ballaster explores the relationship between Behn's poetry and her opinions about gender roles. Behn's best-known attempt at self definition is her vindicatio... Read more

In the following excerpt, the critics assess the coherence and principles of the ostensibly feminist ideology presented in Behn's poem "The Golden Age. " Recent feminist critiq... Read more