Aphra Behn (1640–1689)

Laura Runge, University of South Florida
September 2023

Aphra Behn, also Astrea, (1640–1689) was a poet, playwright, translator, novelist, and spy, and the first woman to earn her living by writing in English. Her works spanned the Restoration, and her life reflected the volatile political and social upheavals of that era. Born to Bartholomew and Elizabeth Johnson of Harbledon, Canterbury on or around December 14, 1640, she had an older sister and a brother. In 1657 banns for her marriage to John Halse, whom she presumably married, were announced at St. Botolph, Aldgate near the Tower of London, placing her in that city at an early age. From August 1663 through February 1664, she probably traveled to the Caribbean colony in Surinam, and upon her return she adopted the status of widow. Records place Behn in Westminster near Sir Philip Howard and connections to the English spying network, e.g. Albemarle. From July 1666 through March 1667, she served as an agent for Charles II in Antwerp, and about twenty state letters signed “A. Behne” from this period survive. Presumably she married a second time, probably to a German merchant named Behn or Bene, and she uses that surname for the rest of her life; it is the name associated with all her signed works as far as we know. Without money for her maintenance in Flanders, she borrowed £150 from Edward Butler to fund her return to London, and when she could not repay the debt Butler threatened her with prison. The terms of repayment and whether or not she went to prison are unknown, but soon afterward she started her career as a playwright. In Oroonoko, the narrator says that she donated some indigenous specimens from Surinam to the King’s Theatre for Robert Howard’s production of The Indian Queen (1664). This may have been her entry into theatre, but her first play The Forc’d Marriage was staged in September 1670 by the Duke’s company. She wrote exclusively for the Duke’s until it became the United Company in 1682; she was a popular playwright, second only in the number of original plays performed to John Dryden, who had a much longer career. Post-Exclusion Crisis, the year 1682 marks a significant turning point for Behn. She may have traveled abroad, likely to France given her new focus on translating from French, and on her return, she resided in St. Bride’s at the house of Mr. Coggin. She diversified her writing and began publishing translations in the imitation mode, a series of poetic collections, including her opus, and the prose fictions for which she became best known. Recognized as a Tory writer, her pen was regularly applied in support of the Stuart dynasty even after James II departed the throne. Only in her last year did she begin to hint of her own illness; in her elegy on Edmund Waller, she wrote prophetically: “I, who by toils of sickness, am become/ almost as near as thou art to a tomb.” She died April 16, 1689, six days after William and Mary’s coronation. She is buried in Westminster Abbey.

This outline of biographical facts has been extracted from the archives with the considerable labor by many hands because the narrative of non-elite early modern women’s lives rarely survives intact as it might for a male counterpart whose letters and journals were collected and preserved. Information on women is further obscured by name changes in marriage and institutionalized practices of record keeping that dropped women from the record or rendered women invisible. When women do appear in the record, as Aphra Behn does, the interpretation of the record is warped over time by the sexism that refuses women any measure of success, such as by claiming without evidence that she plagiarized material or that male colleagues wrote for her or by linking Behn to potential male “keepers” rather than believe she could support herself financially. The fact is that Behn published at least 46 individual printed books and broadsides, with a particularly productive decade in the 1680s, and the money earned by that alone was sufficient to support a gentlewoman’s household. This calculation does not even account for the more lucrative profits from her stage productions nor the gifts and commissions for other writings such as dedications. The feminist recovery of invisible lives in the archive is a shared responsibility, each historian or biographer building upon the “skein of Behn’s biography” from previous accounts. Slowly, collaboratively, Behn’s life emerges in factual accounts of church and state records, letters, newspapers, and other forms of historical evidence to counter the myths and misappropriations of her biography.

Print Record

In her brief two-decade career, Behn staged and published eighteen plays and a prologue and epilogue for two more plays which went unpublished. She also published three volumes of poetry in the 1680s: two miscellanies containing her poetry and the work of others, and her solo-authored collection Poems Upon Several Occasions (PSO) in 1684. Her poetry also appears in the translations and miscellanies of her fellow poets, in an edition of Aesop’s Fables, and in broadsides celebrating significant political and royal events. In prose she published Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister Part 1, a political roman-à-clef, in 1684; she followed this with Parts 2 and 3 of Love-letters, several prose and prose-meter translations, and five shorter fictions, including her most famous work Oroonoko, before she died in 1689. She also wrote dedications, prologues and epilogues, and critical prefaces.

Behn would have been 31 when she entered the print marketplace, with her first staged play The Forc’d Marriage published by James Magnes in 1671. According to Janet Todd, Behn did not have the courage at this point to either petition a dedicatee or to oversee the manuscript and insist on stop-press changes (148). With many compositor errors and poor decisions, this play was the least careful print publication of her works. She quickly learned to oversee her writings in the press with attention, and there is evidence that she worked with printers through multiple stages, particularly for Poems Upon Several Occasions. Her earliest work was published with Magnes and then also Thomas Dring. A young Richard “Novel” Bently joined Magnes in the publication of Abdelazer and The Town Fopp (1677). Bently would later include two of Behn’s works, La Montre and Agnes de Castro, in his extensive Modern Novels collections. After Magnes and Bently, Behn transitions to the famous Tonsons: Richard the father and Jacob the son, who was early in his career. Behn was disappointed by Jacob Tonson in compensation for Poems Upon Several Occasions and also in the poor quality of the print volume which otherwise had the hallmarks of a distinguished collection. It failed on the market, and Tonson sold off unused pages to Francis Saunders who reissued it with the second half of Behn’s translation Lycidus Or the Lover in Fashion in 1697. Her odes on Charles II’s death and coronation of James II were printed in broadside by John Playford the Younger and published by Henry Playford of the music publishing fame. Eight of her final works, including Oroonoko, were issued by the pro-Stuart bookseller William Canning.

Portraits

Behn sat for her portrait at least twice and up to four times with leading artists: Peter Lely and John Riley, and possibly Godfrey Kneller and John Closterman. The Lely portrait, probably taken in the early 1670s, features a young, conventionally beautiful gentlewoman with curled, brown hair and large brown eyes looking slightly off center, a long, straight nose, ivory skin colored with a pink blush around the cheeks. She is attired in a dress of stiff russet colored silk, fastened by bejeweled pins at the shoulders and breast. Over one shoulder is an olive shaded shawl. This painting, or one done by Lely’s atelier, now resides at the Yale Center for Art. The original Lely may have been owned at one point by Behn’s brother-in-law Thomas Wright. Like the portrait by Riley, it is considered lost. The Riley portrait is recalled in the engraving by Robert White that is featured on the frontispiece for Behn’s Poems Upon Several Occasions 1684. According to Claudine Van Hensbergen, it is considered the most reliable likeness of Behn because it was apparently approved by Behn for the publication. A version of this frontispiece is accepted as Behn by the National Portrait Gallery. The sitter for the Riley/White portrait shares many features with the Lely, which conveys authority for the identification of Behn in that portrait. These are the only two known portraits with any claim to be Behn. The portrait which hangs in St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, claims to be of Behn by Mary Beale, but it is neither. There is no documentary evidence to indicate provenance or sitter, unlike for the Lely and Riley portraits (and Kneller and by Closterman). The Lely and the Riley portraits place Behn among an elite society with access to royal artists and means to have a portrait produced. To have more than one portrait taken solidly confirms Behn’s status among gentility and influential artists, a record that counters the more popular, salacious biographical narrative generated by scurrilous poetry of her vitriolic era (e.g. by Mathew Prior or Robert Gould). Unlike other female authors whose work was published with frontispieces (e.g. Margaret Cavendish or Katherine Philips), Behn’s portrait is unadorned; it features a plain oval frame and no tools of the trade or costuming. It broadcasts Behn’s feminine beauty and refinement, a design that fits with the emerging celebrity culture. As a frontispiece, the image circulated with the print publications of PSO and later with the collected works of Behn published by Sam Briscoe and others throughout the eighteenth century. The fact that the frontispiece appears tipped into earlier works by Behn or cut out altogether indicates the recirculation value of Behn’s image. She was a popular celebrity throughout her lifetime and continued to be so through much of the eighteenth century; her reputation declined in the nineteenth century when her sexually frank works were considered inappropriate for Victorian audiences.

The visual record undermines the myth of Behn’s financial precarity that dominates twentieth century biographies. That myth is frequently supported by reference to a letter supposedly from Behn to her then publisher Jacob Tonson, undated. The letter references the imminent publication of her solo authored poetry collection Poems Upon Several Occasions and so can be placed in late 1683 or early 1684. In this letter she asks Tonson for an increase in payment for the manuscript, because she is translating the long poem Voyage to the Isle of Love. “As for ye verses of mine, I shou’d really have thought ’em worth thirty pound: and I hope you will find it worth 25lb: not that I shou’d dispute at any other time for 5 pound wher I am so obleg’d: but you can not think wt a preety thing ye Island will be.” As Jordan Howell and Gillian Wright have argued, the language of Behn’s appeal is a rhetorical act of negotiation between a poet and her publisher. Behn repeats the desire for five more pounds twice more in the letter, each time reminding Tonson of the value of her work. This example, like the many Maureen Bell observes, characterizes the self-promotion that authors enacted to profit in the late seventeenth century book trades. Rather than indicate Behn’s poverty, the letter demonstrates Behn’s savvy in the publishing marketplace. Known to be cheap, Tonson apparently did not raise the payment for her manuscript, and Behn did not publish with Tonson again.

Literary Themes

Behn’s literary work is dominated by themes of love. Poems Upon Several Occasions showcases a wide range of genres into which Behn wove the imagery and plots of love, most notably in her use of the pastoral mode and the Cowleyan ode. She belonged to a manuscript writing network and employed the sobriquet, Astrea. In the poem “Our Cabal” she depicts the identities and characters of her friendship network using pastoral codes. Her plays, mostly comedies and tragicomedies, feature classic love plots structured around at least two couples who encounter familiar impediments to fulfilling their destinies. In them Behn explores uncommon themes of female desire and frustration with patriarchal control. She often voices discontent through strong, iconoclastic female leads. In her prefaces and dedications, she articulates feminist themes such as for parity in judgment of her work.

Behn’s engaging first-person fictional narrator has been a source of biographical information, most notably from Oroonoko (published in 1688). Behn’s narrator claims to have traveled with her father, sister, and brother, to Surinam, where her father (perhaps a father-in-law) was promised the position of Lieutenant General. He died en route and so was denied the colonial position for which he was designed, and Behn and her family returned to England. Oroonoko is written as a first-person eye-witness account in which the narrator claims to tell a faithful history of the enslaved African warrior prince. Similarly, her first-person narrator in the short fiction The Fair Jilt references Behn’s time in the Netherlands and her notice of the scandal of Prince Tarquin. In the beginning of The History of the Nun the narrator claims she was once intended for the convent but did not find it suited. Behn uses this fiction as a platform to condemn parental choice of marriage partners, making forced marriage a theme from the beginning to the end of her career, and raising speculation as to Behn’s own early marriage or marriages.

Verse Epistles

While much has been made about these narrative truth claims, either supporting them as biographical evidence or decrying Behn as a liar, there is less controversy around the revealing biographical facts in her poetry. Behn wrote more verse epistles than any of her contemporaries, according to Bill Overton, and many of these letters indicate a personal relationship between the author and the addressee. All indicate a widespread network of relations for Behn in London and beyond. Letters of dedication for plays or books, such as to Edward Howard on his failed play The New Utopia, or “To Author of The Way to Health and Happiness,” do not necessarily mean Behn knew the people, and in the latter case her fame could have been enough to secure a paid endorsement for the book. Poems with more personal subject matter, like her elegy to John Wilmot, the Lord Rochester and her epistle to his niece Ann Wharton provide insight into Behn’s friends and character. She would not have socialized with the nobleman, but evidence suggests that he knew her poetry and probably advised her on it. Her epistles establish Behn’s friendships with artists (Mr. Grinhill), authors (Waller, Higden, Lestrange, Fane), members of the Inns at Court (Mr. J(ohn) H(oyl)), and social elites such as Lady Morland.

Behn’s drama particularly in the last years clearly show that she also moved in a network of musicians, singers, and dancers; her poems indicate that she was passionate about music, particularly the human voice. Her epistle “To Mr. P (who sings finely)” possibly refers to George Powell who later sung and acted in her plays and indicates a great passion for music and familiarity with the singers and musicians who performed in her circles. She wrote more songs than other types of poems, and many were set to music by leading musicians such as John Bannister, Captain Pack, and John Blow. Songs from her plays were later republished in popular song collections such as the 1672 Coventry Garden Drollery, or Playford’s Choyse Ayres and Songs, and Theatre of Complements. Some poems such as the popular tune in Scottish dialect “Ah Jenny gen your eyes do kill” from The City Heiress were published in broadside for wide public consumption. A second song from The City Heiress “In Phyllis all vile Jilts are met” was republished in multiple collections and with musical notation, possibly by Giovanni Battista Draghi. Similarly, “Love thou art Stronger than Wine,” from The Luckey Chance and three songs from The Emperor of the Moon were republished anonymously in collections, some of which were reprinted throughout the eighteenth century. Her musical footprint was widespread though often extended through anonymous reprints.

Her verse epistle “To the Unknown Daphnis” was written as a solicited, dedicatory poem for Thomas Creech’s translation of Lucretius, and was later included in her own PSO. The original poem indicates that Behn has not met the “unknown,” but the second version entitled “To Mr. Creech (Under the Name of Daphnis)” signals a change in their relationship, a fact supported by other letters and a poem of dubious attribution that records their intended meeting at Tonson’s. The epistle is significant and self-revelatory about Behn’s education. Little is known with certainty how Behn came about her education. Her mother, Elizabeth Johnson, served as wetnurse to Sir Thomas Culpepper, and his published anecdotes reveal sporadic insights about Behn. Janet Todd speculates that the Culpepper library may have been the original source of Behn’s self-education. She was clearly well-educated and trained in writing a fine script, as evident in her surviving letters and manuscripts. However, she laments not having an education in the Ancients as men had. The translations of ancient texts, like Creech’s Lucretius, extends more than mere language to Behn, it creates a power for the author, like unto gods. The text itself holds fascination for Behn as it deals with atomistic theory and nihilism. Though she was raised in the Anglican (or Catholic) faith, she entertained beliefs in a godless or pantheistic world. More importantly, the translations of Ancient texts that appeared regularly during Behn’s lifetime revealed the secrets that had been the privilege of her male counterparts. When Dryden invited Behn to contribute a translation to his collection of Ovid’s Heroides, she felt compelled to tell him to say in the preface that “she knew not Latine.” Dryden’s gallant framing of Behn’s lack of Latin is to say, “if she doe not, I am afraid she has given us occasion to be asham’d who do.” Veracity aside, the point to consider is that Behn did not have the advantages of the classical education of her contemporaries, and yet she creatively adapted and translated and produced popular and genre-breaking new works despite this handicap. Her poem to Creech expresses a bold statement on behalf of women:

Till now, I curst my Birth, my Education,
And more the scanted Customes of the Nation:
Permitting not the Female Sex to tread,
The Mighty Paths of Learned Heroes dead.
The God-like Virgil, and great Homers Verse,
Like Divine Mysteries are conceal’d from us.
We are forbid all grateful Theams,
No ravishing thoughts approach our Ear,
The Fulsom Gingle of the times,
Is all we are allow’d to understand or hear.
….
So thou by this Translation dost advance
Our Knowledg from the State of Ignorance,
And equals us to Man: Ah how can we,
Enough Adore, or Sacrifice enough to thee!

In addition to Dryden’s collection of Ovid translations, Behn writes the translation of Cowley’s Latin Of Trees; published in the last year of her life “the Translatress in her own person speaks” in praise of the laurel: “Let me with Sappho and Orinda be / Oh ever sacred nymph, adorn’d by thee; / And give my verses Immortality.”

Death and aftermath

As a political poet, Behn’s life was entwined with the abdication of James II and the troubled introduction of William III and Mary. Gilbert Burnet might have tried to enlist her in his propaganda campaign for William, but Behn declined and wrote a public ode to Burnet in which she imagined herself as the exiled prophet watching others gain the promised land. Her carefully worded panegyric on Queen Mary alone more comfortably praises the daughter in the image of her exiled father. In the end Behn remained true to the Stuart cause.

Behn is buried in Westminster Abbey in the East Cloisters away from Poet’s Corner. Her interment there was probably ordered by her longtime friend, the poet and historian Thomas Sprat, Dean of Westminster. On her head stone, two of the four lines of verse originally inscribed remain: “Here lies a proof that wit can never be / Defence enough against mortality.”

She is remembered in two elegies, one by Nat Lee and one by “A Young Lady of Quality.” Both published in broadside, the poems celebrate Behn’s rare achievement, poetic fame, and success as a woman. Both also allude in different ways to the conflicted reputation she held as a female poet of love, ascribing to Behn that she “practis’d what she taught.” Behn’s work continued to be regarded highly, and reprints and adaptations of her plays and fiction extend her footprint through the eighteenth century, and for some works like Oroonoko, well beyond. The Rover or The Emperor of the Moon were staged every season through until mid-century. Her collected works, poetic editions, and translations similarly experienced a prolonged afterlife. Few authors saw continued success in poetry, music, drama, fiction, and translations at the same time, a success that earns her satirical nods from Jonathan Swift (Battle of the Books) and Alexander Pope (Imitations of Horace).

References

Maureen Bell, “‘Literary pimping’ or Business as Usual? Aphra Behn and the Book Trade,” Women’s Writing 27.3 (2020): 275–93.

Karen Britland, “Aphra Behn’s first marriage?” The Seventeenth Century, 36:1, (2021): 33–53, DOI:10.1080/0268117X.2019.1693420.

——, “‘A poor gentlewoman that cannot take mercenary courses for her bread’: Aphra Behn’s sister and the influence of colonialism in late seventeenth-century London,” The Seventeenth Century, 38:1, (2023): 131–153, DOI:10.1080/0268117X.2022.2136844.

Cambridge Edition of the Works of Aphra Behn: Volume IV Plays 1682–1696, General Editors: Clair Bowditch, Mel Evans, Elaine Hobby, Gillian Wright, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).

Maureen Duffy, The Pasionate Shepherdess: The Life of Aphra Behn 1640–1689, paperback edition (London: Phoenix Press, 2000).

Jordan Howell, “Aphra Behn, Editor,” The Review of English Studies (Dec. 2016): 549–565. https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgw114.

Janet Todd, The Secret Life of Aphra Behn, paperback edition (Oxford: Pandora, 2000).

——, “Aphra Behn,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/1961.

Claudine Van Hensbergen, “Aphra Behn: Portraiture and the Biographical Account,” The Review of English Studies, New Series (2021): 1–21, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgaa098.

Gillian Wright, Producing Women’s Poetry, 1600–1730: Text and Paratext, Manuscript and Print (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).