I’m doing this now because I realised I hadn’t addressed anything from the ‘State of the Nation’ section.
Aphra Behn was a pretty remarkable woman. She was a spy and a playwright, like a 17th century, female, Christopher Marlowe.
Oroonoko is also a pretty remarkable book, it’s one of the first novels and it’s a surprisingly humane early look at the life of a black slave.
Not to say that Aphra Behn was an abolitionist but she was definitely a royalist and dammit Oroonoko is king. Oroonoko isn’t what you’d call a well rounded character, he’s stupidly noble. Like Aragorn-esque in his innate awesomeness, which admittedly does make his slavery and destruction at the hands of petty believable characters more tragic. But also makes him not really human, like he needs to make up for being black by being otherwise flawless. Oh and looking noble and not too off puttingly african… There does seem to be a general feeling that if only Surinam had a properly noble leader everything would have worked out alright slavery or no slavery. There is a decent argument that Behn actually traveled to Surinam during her spying activities which adds a bit of colour to the narrative
Oroonoko is matched in his nobility only by his lady-friend Imoinda. Who ends up getting beheaded to avoid being raped – clearly the better option. Aphra Behn is many amazing, forward looking things but don’t get caught up thinking she was some feminist, abolitionist liberal. Apparently she was inspired partly by Othello which I can see.
Anyway in conclusion Virginia Woolf said:
“All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”
Which is pretty cool and I would totally do, if getting into Westminster Abbey wasn’t so darn expensive.
1000 Little Pieces 