Aphra Behn and the Pastoral Ideal

                            Aphra Behn - 'The Golden Age' ( A pastoral poem)

                                      (1640- 1689)

                                     

                       Image of Aphra Behn gratefully uploaded from the famouspeople.com website 

I

“Blest age when  ev'ry purling stream

Ran undistrubed and clear,

When no scorned shepherds on your banks were seen,

Tortured by love, by jealousy, or fear;

When an eternal Spring dressed ev'ry bough

And blossoms fell, by new ones dispossessed ".......

Aphra Behn ‘s poem ‘’The Golden Age’ was published in 1684 featured in  a

collection titled ‘Poems for all Occasions-With A Voyage to the Island of Love’.

The poem is partly based on an unidentified French work. Aphra Behn  eulogises

an unplaced time and land where nature is benign

and humanity lives out a harmonious existence.  

The concept of a mythical past is at least as old as Greek antiquity. What so intriguing about Aphra Behn is that what seems to have triggered the poem is a visit to the English colony of Suriname rather than reading the classics.

IV

" Then no rough sound of war's alarms

Had taught the world the needless use of arms:

Monarchs were uncreated then,

Those arbitrary rulers over men:

Kings that made laws, first broke 'em, and the gods

By teaching us religion first, first set the world at odd

Then no rough sound of war’s alarms

Had taught the world the needless use of arms:

Monarchs were uncreated then,

Those arbitrary rulers over men:

Kings that made laws, first broke 'em, and the gods

By teaching us religion first, first set the world at odd "

Full text of poem 

Aphra Behn is often counted as the first woman known to have made a living from writing. Not quite right.  Such an accolade should belong to Hannah Woolley ( who wrote books on cookery and housekeeping), and Sarah Jinner, ( writer of almanacs), and were first published during the Civil War.

Much as been made of Aphra Behn’s honorary mention in Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room Of One’s Own’

 ( 1929) , though paradoxically it was the arch traditionalist,  Reverend Montague Summers who tried hardest to revive interest in Aphra Behn’s work, editing a six volume set of her collected works  published in 1915.

The generally accepted view is that Aphra was born in 1640 in either Canterbury or Wye, in Kent. Historians generally believe that her father was Bartholomew Johnson, though this is disputed, with at least one biographer claiming that Aphra was born into family by the name of Amis. In her youth Aphra  probably went to the  then English colony  of Suriname, though this is not certain, and historians can not agree whether she went with her family in 1650’s or as a young women as late as 1663. This one time English colony was captured by the Dutch in 1667 and  was ceded to them via the Treaty of Breda of that year.

Aphra married a Dutch merchant called Behn around 1664. He may have been a slave trader, perhaps not, but in any event  did not live very long.  Again we have to be vague about dates, but generally accepted that 1665 Aphra, a young widow, was an English  spy in the Spanish Netherlands, now Belgium, for a couple of years.

Aphra Behn was most remember for a whole series of play  that were performed on the London stage, starting with ‘The Forced Marriage ‘in 1670. She also wrote novellas and poems. Some some of her work was badwy….’The Rovers’ features a group of banished cavaliers in exile with virtually no money, trying to have sex with young women, who turn out to be no pushover. ‘The Dutch Lover’ is rather spiteful dig at the enemy nation during the third Anglo-Dutch war of 1672-4.  Her novel  ‘Love Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister’ ( again inspired by French sources but also a commentary on the antics of Lord Grey accused of abducting a young lady ) is extremely erotic, and reminds one that The Restoration was an era where the theme of  women’s sexual desire could appear in literature.

Yet Aphra Behn was no democrat, plays such as ‘The Roundheads’ demonstrate this. She  particularly opposing the populism of Lord Shaftesbury and James Duke of Monmouth ‘The Protestant Duke’ , who were fermenting on public disorder,  and had little patience with their endless Popish plots and conspiracies, leading to  imprisonment and execution.

During the early 1680’s she was firmly allied to the Tory  playwrights such as John Dryden, and loyal to the Duke of York, later to become James II. In fact when James ascended the throne in 1685 she wrote an eight hundred line poem in his honour-'Pindarick poem on the Happy Coronation of the most Sacred Majesty James II' '. Possibly hoping for some royal patronage. However ‘The Golden Age’  is highly critical of both monarchy, war and religion. Aphra Behn’s ideal society seems pacifist.

Aphra wrote a novel ‘Oroonoko-A history of the Royal Slave’ about a West African prince, who has kept and sold slaves himself,  but  tricked into being captured by a slave trader and taken to Suriname, eventually to lead a slave revolt. The lead character is European woman who befriends Oroonoko, who later takes on the title of ‘Caesar’.  

Significantly ‘Oroonoko’ was published in 1688, and was made into a stage play in 1696.  And now  has become a colonial studies classic, showing a white european lady’s impressions of  the lives of both the slaves and native Americans as well as her own people.

Aphra Behn  portrayed life in Suriname in such meticulous detail, even the plants, the animals, the customs of the settlers, natives and slaves….it is hard to imagine that she didn’t visit. And ‘The Golden Age’ poem is a more benign version of the climate of Suriname without the fevers and the extreme heat that could be fatal to Europeans ( It is hard to work out the climate of this region in the 17th century. Europe is generally thought to have been colder ).

Tis a Continent, whose vast Extent was never yet known, and may contain more noble Earth than all the Universe beside; for, they say, it reaches from East to West one Way as far as China, and another to Peru: It affords all Things, both for Beauty and Use; ’tis there eternal Spring, always the very Months of April, May, and June; the Shades are perpetual, the Trees bearing at once all Degrees of Leaves, and Fruit, from blooming Buds to ripe Autumn:

 Oroonoko himself is a noble black man of the ‘Othello’ variety.- he is also European looking, speaks French and Spannish,  reads Roman history essentially atypical of West Africans. Aphra Behn does not expressly call for the abolition of slavery nor the practice of transportation of men and women from England, Scotland and Ireland. Yet she found virtue, and honour amongst African slaves and the native Indians. The white colonialists vary from being benign to outright sadists, but are shown as being incapable of keeping their word.

The lead character and fellow colonists go with Oroonoko on a hunting expedition and  to attempt trade with native Indians. The novel contains one of the first  written encounters  between American native shamans.

"They shewed us their Indian Peeie a Youth of about sixteen Years old, as handsome as Nature could make a Man. They consecrate a beautiful Youth from his Infancy, and all Arts are used to compleat him in the finest Manner, both in Beauty and Shape. He is bred to all the little Arts and Cunning they are capable of; to all the legerdemain Tricks, and Slight of Hand. whereby he imposes on the Rabble; and he is both a Doctor in Physic and Divinity "

Yet there is a scepticism present. The ‘peeie’ is not spiritually  inspired, he is cunning, Aphra Behn’s pastoral ideal might be the abode of  natives but they are not religious. Her own scepticism seemed based on Lucretius’ ‘De Rerum Natura’, as offered an introduction to  Thomas Creech’s translation that appeared in 1682 .

Significantly ‘Oroonoko’ was published in 1688,  a year or so before her death, and a few years later was made into a stage play.  And now  has become a colonial studies classic, showing a white european lady’s impressions of  the lives of both the slaves and native Americans as well as her own people as colonists. Both ‘Oroonoko’ and ‘The Golden Age’ serve as warning against future empire building on the part of Europeans, suggesting that this is not in the best interests of either the colonists  or the colonised.  

V

" Right and property were words since made,

When Pow'r taught mankind to invade:

When Pride and Avarice became a trade;

Carried on by discord, noise and wars,

For which they bartered wounds and scars;

And to enhance the merchandise, miscalled it Fame,

And rapes, invasions, tyrannies

Was gaining of a glorious name:

Styling their savage slaughters, Victories;

Honor, the error and the cheat “

Further Reading. 

The first biography about Aphra Behn was

History of the Life and Memoirs of Mrs. Behn (1696- re-published in 1698).

Interest in her work tailed off as from the mid-18th century until the 20th century.

The Introduction to the six volume The Collected Works of Aphra Behn, (1915) by the Reverend Montague Summers is worth reading,

‘ Aphra Behn-A Secret Life’ ,  by Janet Todd, first published in 1996, now has a new kindle release . Highly recommended.

Interesting Youtube lecture and discussion by  Michael Moir’s  on ‘Oronoko World Literature II’

Poetry Foundation entry on Aphra Behn.

Text of ‘Oroonoko’

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