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"Oroonoko" is the only one of Mrs Behn's stories which has a didactic aim or a special interest of any kind. Her other works of fiction are short tales, usually founded on fact, which describe in unrestrained language the passion and adventures of a pair of very ardent lovers. They show the prevailing inclination in narrative fiction toward characters and scenes taken from actual life.
In judging a literary work from the point of view of morality or refinement, we must compare it with the standard of the age to which it belongs, and not with our own. Pope's graphic lines, in which he describes Mrs. Behn's position as a dramatist, "The stage how loosely doth Astræa tread, Who fairly puts all characters to bed." apply almost equally well to her novels.
As the author himself states in his preface, Harlequin roi dans la Lune, a three act comedy by Bodard de Tezay, produced at the Varietes Amusantes, 17 December, 1785, has nothing to do with the old Italian scenes. An opera by Settle, entitled The World in the Moon, put on at Drury Lane in 1697, is quite different from Mrs. Behn's farce.
The intrigues and counter-intrigues are innumerable. At the end the cuckolds all jeer one another. p. 186 Sir Courtly Nice. This witty comedy, Crowne's masterpiece, was produced at the Theatre Royal in 1685. Mrs. Behn's allusion is to Act ii, II, where Crack, disguised as a tailor, visits Leonora. The language is often cleverly suggestive. p. 186 Sir Fopling.
This young fellow lay in bed reading one of Mrs Behn's novels; for he had been instructed by a friend that he would find no more effectual method of recommending himself to the ladies than the improving his understanding, and filling his mind with good literature.
Behn's methods of adorning her tale are best shown by her description of Oroonoko himself, which is a good example of the tone in which the story is written.
Aphra Behn's plays, where the cavaliers are denominated the heroicks, and Lady Lambert and Lady Desborough represented as going to meeting, their large Bibles carried before them by their pages, and falling in love with two banished cavaliers by the way.
And when poor Duns, quite weary, will not stay; The hopeless Squire's into Alsatia driven. Behn's reference to Alsatia in this play, which is often ignored, claims fourth place. We then have Shadwell's famous comedy, The Squire of Alsatia , with its well-known vocabulary of Alsatian jargon and slang, its scenes in Whitefriars, the locus classicus, a veritable mine of information.
Autobiography was almost the only form of writing not attempted by Eliza Haywood in the course of her long career as an adventuress in letters. Unlike Mme de Villedieu or Mrs. Aphra Behn's fictitious exploits and amorous correspondence . Indeed the first biographer of Mrs.
This author cannot be well acquainted with Mrs. Behn's works, who makes a comparison between them and the productions of Durfey. There are marks of a fine understanding in the most unfinished piece of Mrs. Behn, and the very worst of this lady's compositions are preferable to Durfey's bell. It is unpleasing to have the merit of any of the Fair Sex lessened. Mrs.
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