The Rover or, The Banish’t Cavaliers, comedy by Aphra Behn, produced and published in two parts in 1677 and 1681. Set in Madrid and Naples during the exile of England’s King Charles II, the play depicts the adventures of a small group of English Cavaliers. The protagonist, the charming but irresponsible Willmore, may have been modeled on John Wilmot Rochester, a poet in the inner circle of Charles II. The hero’s real-life counterpart may also have been John Hoyle, who was a lover of the playwright.
What did Virginia Woolf say about Aphra Behn? Do you agree with her? Why?
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th century authors and also a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Whenever Aphra Behn is written about, Virginia Woolf's entreaty is usually pulled out to act as the opening line:
"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."
Behn had a few female contemporaries but, unlike her, they were aristocratic and certainly not doing anything as vulgar as writing for money. These hobbyist writers would also usually warn potential readers with a notice that the following work was written by a member of the "fair sex", as though apologising in advance. Aphra Behn made no such apologies. She did not ask for permission or acceptance - and it was because she did neither that she proved to be so popular among the ordinary playgoers whose opinion so often goes unrecorded. Operating with striking success outside gender conventions, it was she who paved the way for other women to do the same. What's more, she included as much wit and bawdiness as she could muster, along with a sharp insight into both sex and politics. She was the Restoration's very own combination of Dorothy Parker and Mae West.
Her novel was Oroonoko. This is despite the fact that Behn has been totally overlooked not just by male critics of long ago, but most recently by Terry Eagleton, something which surprised me when I was researching a paper I was writing on Behn and Daniel Defoe last year. In his The English Novel: An Introduction he begins, like most, with Daniel Defoe, despite a gap of almost 30 years between Robinson Crusoe and Oroonoko. A shameful omission.
In fact, Oroonoko is more than just a "novel". It was also the first novel of ideas. It was a call to abolish slavery more than 100 years before Letitia Barbauld's Epistle to William Wilberforce on the Rejection of the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
Behn was not just determined to stick two fingers up at convention, she was very clever at managing to turn the tables entirely. Oroonoko didn't simply suggest that slavery was vile and immoral but that, far from being savages, slaves were the ones with the grace, tradition and morals. It was, she makes clear, the colonists who were the barbarous savages steeped in hypocrisy, and it was they who should be learning a thing or two from the people they held captive. At the same time she also managed to include a powerful statement on the political powerlessness of women.
Here she was, the incomparable Aphra. She had worked as a spy for King and country, served time in debtors' prison, and been called a slut as a writer, not just in her own time but by a whole series of (male) critics since. Here was a woman who did not just appease and beg to be allowed to write to earn a living.
On a previous blog on literary time travel, Aphra Behn was mentioned as someone whom it would be an adventure to visit. But what if we could bring her here, to the present, just for the day? What would she think of a traipse around the bookshops and the writing of noughties women; booksellers' tables groaning under the weight of pastel book covers that, far from defying convention and questioning and confronting, actually conform to the oldest patriarchal conventions?
Before beginning of my task I would light to throw some lights on some key facts of this paly.....
Key Facts about the play:
Full Title: The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
Author :Oscar Wilde
Type Of Work: Play
Genre: Social comedy; comedy of manners; satire; intellectual farce
Language: English
Time And Place Written: Summer 1894 in Worthing, England
Date Of First Production: February 14, 1895. In part because of Wilde’s disgrace, the play was not published until 1899.
Publisher: L. Smithers
Tone :Light, scintillating, effervescent, deceptively flippant
Setting (Time): 1890s
Setting (Place): London (Act I) and Hertfordshire, a rural county not far from London (Acts II and III)
Protagonist :John Worthing, known as “Ernest” by his friends in town (i.e., London) and as “Jack” by his friends and relations in the country
Task: Which of the female character is the most attractive to you among Lady Augusta Bracknell, Gwendolen Fairfax, Cecily Cardew and Miss Prism? Give your reasons for she being the most attractive among all.
There are four female characters in this paly: Gwendolen, Cecily, Miss Prism, and above all Lady Bracknell. Each of this women has clearly been differentiated from each other.
Gwendolen Fairfax:
Algernon’s cousin and Lady Bracknell’s daughter. Gwendolen is in love with Jack, whom she knows as Ernest. She is sophisticated,intellectual,cosmopolitan,and utterly pretentious. Gwendolen is fixated on the name Ernest and says she will not marry a man without that name.
Cecily Cardew
Jack’s ward, the granddaughter of Thomas Cardew who found and adopted Jack when Jack was a baby. Cecily is probably the most realistically drawn character in the play. Like Gwendolen, she is obsessed with the name Ernest.She fall in love with Jack’s brother Ernest in her imagination and to invent an elaborate romance and courtship between them.
Miss Prism
Cecily’s governess. Miss Prism is an endless source of pedantic bromides and clichés. She speaks of having once written a novel whose manuscript was “lost” or “abandoned.” Also, she entertains romantic feelings for Dr. Chasuble.
Most attractive female character: Lady Bracknell
The portrayal of Lady Bracknell is certainly the most striking and attractive in 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. She is undoubtedly an unforgettable character. She represents the greatest achievement of Oscar Wilde so far as the creation or portrayal of characters is concerned.
At the same time she is a most convincing person even though most of the situations in this play are improbable and the plot is on the whole absurd and incredible. Lady Bracknell dominates the company wherever she is present. We meet her in Acts I and III of the play, and on both occasions she impresses us as a formidable personality. And yes she does not figure in Act II at all, and yet she remains in our thoughts throughout the play. She has strongly been individualized, and is clearly distinguishable from all the other characters in the play.She is a very unique person.
Her Liking For Cucumber Sandwiches:
The first thing that we learn about Lady Bracknell is her partiality for cucumber sandwiches. Algernon has especially asked his servant Lane to prepare cucumber sandwiches because Lady Bracknell is coming to tea at his flat. It is another matter that he himself consumes all the cucumber sandwiches before Lady Bracknell arrives, with the result that, when she asks for cucumber sandwiches, Algernon has to make an excuse that cucumbers were not available in the market even for ready cash.
Domineering and Suspicious
Lady Bracknell is a true representative of the upper classes in England of the time when this play was written. She is snobbish and class-conscious, and she is at the same time a person who judges people by the amount of wealth they have. She cross-examines Jack Worthing very closely in order to determine his suitability as her son-in-law. The very manner in which she interrogates Jack shows not only her domineering temperament but also her suspicious nature. Her comments on the replies which Jack gives to her questions are amusing because of their mixture of approval and disapproval. When, for instance, in reply to a question he says that be is twentynine years old, her comment is that it is a very good age to be married at. But when, in reply to another question, he says that he owns a house in the country, she doubtfully asks how many bedrooms that house has adding that this point can be cleared up afterwards. questions, she feels very disappointed to learn that as an infant he was found in a hand-bag in a railway cloak-room and that his parentage is unknown. She forbids the marriage of her daughter Gwendolen to him for this reason.
Her Mercenary Outlook:
Lady Bracknell is acutely class-conscious and advises Algernon never to speak disrespectfully of high society because only those who cannot move in high social circles speak disparagingly of high society. The questions that she asks about Cecily in order to determine Cecily’s suitability as a wife for her nephew Algernon again shows her class-consciousness, and these questions again show her suspicious nature and her desire to get to the bottom of a situation and not to judge by appearances only. When Jack names Cecily’s family solicitors, Lady Bracknell says, in a condescending manner, that one partner in that particular firm of solicitors is occasionally seen at upper-class dinner-parties and that for this reason she feels quite satisfied with this aspect of Cecily’s credentials. She is very particular to know whether Cecily will bring a rich dowry or not ; and, on being informed that Cecily has a large amount of money in her name, Lady Bracknell comes to the conclusion that Cecily is a suitable girl to marry her nephew. In fact, Cecily’s having so much money in her name is in Lady Bracknell’s eyes Cecily’s most important qualification.
Her Patronizing Manner of Speaking to Cecily:
The information about Cecily’s having a lot of money in her name makes Lady Bracknell see certain qualities in Cecily which she had not detected in her before. But even then she speaks to Cecily in a patronizing tone, adopting a superior attitude towards her. She points out that Cecily’s dress is “sadly simple” and that her hair seems almost as Nature had left it. She then wants to see:
Cecily’s profile and, after looking at it closely, remarks, again in a patronizing tone, that there are distinct social possibilities in her profile. Although she approves of Cecily as a wife for Algernon chiefly on the basis of Cecily’s wealth, she yet declares that she does not approve of mercenary marriages. Citing her own case, she says that she had no fortune at all when she married Lord Bracknell but that she never allowed her lack of a dowry to stand in the way of her marriage to him. This is, indeed, one of her most amusing remarks, the humour here arising from the twist which she gives to the argument. If she had no fortune of any kind when she married Lord Bracknell, it went to the credit of Lord Bracknell that he married a woman without a dowry. But Lady Bracknell claims thee credit for herself.
Her Authoritarian Attitude Towards Her Daughter:
Lady Bracknell is an extremely self-assertive woman who makes her presence felt by everybody. She not only tries to overawe Jack and afterwards Cecily but adopts an authoritative and stern attitude towards her daughter, Gwendolen. When Gwendolen tells her that she has got engaged to Mr. Worthing, Lady Bracknell declares that she is not engaged to any one and that, when she does become engaged, she will be informed of the fact by her mother or by her father in case his health permits him. Afterwards, when Gwendolen again tells her mother that she has get engaged to be married to Mr. Worthing, Lady Bracknell again speaks to her in a tone of authority, declaring that she does not recognize this engagement. Nor do we doubt that Lady Bracknell rules her husband. Whenever she refers to her husband, she does so in the manner of a woman who thinks herself to be the boss in her home. This is clear from her remark that she has never “undeceived” her husband on any question, implying that she never allows her husband to know what is going on in the house.
Her Wit:
Lady Bracknell possesses an inexhaustible capacity to make witty remarks and statements. Indeed, her wit adds greatly to her stature as a character in the play. Even without her wit, she would be a person to reckon with. But her ready wit and her capacity for sarcasm make her even more formidable. Almost every remark that she makes is amusing. For instance, she says that it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether to live or to die. She considers the modern sympathy with invalids to be undesirable as it shows morbidity in the sympathizer. Afterwards, when she is told that Mr. Bunbury is dead, she makes the comment that Mr. Bunbury showed much sense in deciding to die. When jack, in the course of her interrogation of him, tells her that he had lost both his parents, she makes the comment that his having lost both his parents shows carelessness on his part. Perhaps her most memorable remark is made when she tells Jack that she and her husband would never dream of allowing their only daughter to “marry into a cloak-room and form an alliance with a parcel.”
Her Paradoxical Remarks:
Some of Lady Bracknell’s remarks are paradoxical and at the same time witty. When, for instance, she says that a girl having a simple, unspoiled nature like Gwendolen can hardly be expected to reside in the country, she provides an example of a witty paradox because actually a simple and unspoiled girl would prefer to live in the country and because it is only the sophisticated and spoiled girls who have a preference for town life and a distaste for the countryside. Again, Lady Bracknell expresses her opposition to long engagements on the ground that they give the two partners an opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage and that this is not at all desirable. This statement too is a paradox because actually it is thought better that a man and a woman should understand each other’s character before marriage. Lady Bracknell expresses her opinion of Algernon in the following paradoxical manner :
“He has nothing but he looks everything. What more can one desire ?”
Another paradoxical remark that she makes about Algernon is :
“He has nothing but his debts to depend on.”
She makes a satirical and paradoxical remark about society ladies who do not tell their real age. London society, says Lady Bracknell, is full of women who have remained thirtyfive for years.
A Convincing Character:
Lady Bracknell is certainly a convincing character. There is nothing fantastic or incredible about her. She has vividly been presented and her portrayal is perfectly realistic. Such women are not common, but such women do exist. After all, a combination of snobbery, class-consciousness,, love of money and wealth, a tendency to dominate, and a capacity to make satirical and hard-hitting remarks is nothing impossible. If at all “there is any exaggeration in her portrayal, it is in the wit that she displays. Apart from her wit which is certainly unusually fertile, Lady Bracknell is a person in whose existence we can thoroughly believe.
Lady Bracknell Quotes:
“I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.”
"Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.”
“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
After completing the unit "The Rape of the Lock" our prof. Vaidehi Hariyani ma'am gave us task as our thinking activity. This blog is response for that.
Task:- Write a brief analysis of Belinda's character keeping in mind the contemporary time rather than the 18th Century.
About the poem "The Rape of the Lock
The Rape of the Lock, mock-epic poem in heroic couplets by Alexander Pope. The first version, published in 1712, consisted of two cantos; the final version, published in 1714, was expanded to five cantos.It was based on an actual event recounted to the poet by Pope's friend, John Caryll. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre.
Characters Analysis: Belinda
Alexander Pope has designed The Rape of the Lock as the representative works depicting Belinda as the model of the common fashionable ladies of his time. Belinda is the chief attraction and she becomes the heroine of it. She is the only leading character. Yet her screams and the flashes of lightening from her eyes are compared to those of an epic hero.
There are several aspects of the personality of Belinda as portrayed by Pope in The Rape of the Lock. At the very outset of the poem, we see her as an idle and late-rising aristocratic lady who possesses keen interest in domestic pets.
She is a worshiper of beauty who prays to the goddess of beauty and offers all the items of cosmetics before her. She is a typical presentation of women’s excessive attention to self decoration and embellishment. She gathers all the fashionable items from all over the world-Indian glowing gems, Arabian perfumes, files of pins, puffs, powders, patches etc. In a satirical passage, Pope describes Belinda in a Confucius mood before her dressing table in the po by using line such as
"Here files of pains extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux."
Here, Pope seeks to throw light upon the fickle minded fashionable ladies of the 18th century England depicting Belinda as the representative character.
If we talk about the Belinda of contemporary time than we can say that the character of Belinda in present time will be totally different from the 18th century.Because if this incident(cutting down the lock of hair)take place with Belida in contemporary time the reaction of Belinda is totally different.Perhaps She will call the police to arrest Baron and give punishment for that. today's Belinda will be full of confidence.
Watch this video to know more about Belinda's character.
Absalom and Achitophel, verse satire by English poet John Dryden published in 1681. The poem, which is written in heroic couplets, is about the Exclusion crisis, a contemporary episode in which anti-Catholics, notably the earl of Shaftesbury, sought to bar James, duke of York, a Roman Catholic convert and brother to King Charles II, from the line of succession in favour of the king’s illegitimate (but Protestant) son, the duke of Monmouth. Dryden based his work on a biblical incident recorded in 2 Samuel 13–19. These chapters relate the story of King David’s favourite son Absalom and his false friend Achitophel (Ahithophel), who persuades Absalom to revolt against his father. In his poem, Dryden assigns each figure in the crisis a biblical name; e.g., Absalom is Monmouth, Achitophel is Shaftesbury, and David is Charles II. Despite the strong anti-Catholic tenor of the times, Dryden’s clear and persuasive dissection of the intriguers’ motives helped to preserve the duke of York’s position.
We can say that it is a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one .Political allegories are stories that use imaginary characters and situations to satirize real-life political events.
M.H.Abrams his book A Glossary of literary terms defines that,,
"An allegory is a narrative, whether in prose or verse, in which the agents and actions, and sometimes the setting as well, are contrived by the author to make coherent sense on the "literal," or primary, level of significa-tion, and at the same time to signify a second, correlated order of signifi-cation."
The definition of allegory has two senses. The first relates to when an author writes an allegory by design as did Edmund Spenser and John Bunyon. In this sense of allegory the characters are usually given titles rather than names: e.g., the Red Crosse Knight and Mr. Worldy Wiseman. The second sense of allegory depends on the reading given a particular work, passage, sentence, line. In other words, a particular reader may find allegory through his/her reading whereas another reader may not recognize allegory in the same work.
Allegorical representation in Absalom and Achitophel
Biblical Character
What or who is this character in Biblical time
Allegorical Represention
Biblical Character
King David
The third King of Israel
King Charles II
King David
Absalom
David's illegitimate son
James Scott
Absalom
Achitophel
A deceitful counselor ,friend of David
Antony Ashley Cooper
Achitophel
Saul
The 1st KIng of Israel
Oliver Cromwell
Saul
David's Brother
The heir of presumptive of Israel
James II
David's Brother
Corah
Priest,most important of Achitophel's men
Titus Oates
Corah
Shimei
most powerful of Achitophel's men,dishonest crook
Slingsby Bethel
Shimei
Zimri
King of Israel for seven days
George Villiers
Zimri
The Pharaoh
The leader of Egypt and David's ally
Louis XIV
The Pharaoh
Ishbosheth
Saul's son,king of Israel before David's reign
Oliver Cromwell's son Richard
Ishbosheth
Jonas
prophet in the Bible
Sir William Jones
Jonas
Barzillai
David's oldest and most trusted friend
James Butler
Barzillai
Barzillai's Eldest Son
The son of David's trusted men
Thomas Butler
Barzillai's Eldest Son
Jotham
King of Judah, The grandson of Zadock
Geprge Savile
Jotham
Amiel
King David's trusted men, important member of Sanhedrin
Edward Seymour
Amiel
Michal
King David's wife,daughter of Saul,t he queen of Israel
Catherine
Michal
John Dryden wrote Absalom and Achitophel as a satire to instigate political reform. The era was that during which a faction in England was trying to seat the illegitimate son of Charles II (after the Restoration) on the throne through a rebellion against Charles II. Dryden used a Biblical tale, that of the rebellion of Absalom against King David, in the humor of satire stated with the sweetening leaven of verse to point out the wrongfulness of a rebellion and the disastrous impending outcome of such a rebellion.
As we can see from the excerpted quote below, Dryden did not style Absalom and Achitophel as an allegory, as did Spenser and Bunyon, but he was certainly casting then contemporary figures in the role of Biblical heroes and villains. Therefore, an understanding of Absalom and Achitophel as an allegory revolves around the second sense of the definition of allegory, which is that a reading of allegory rests with the reader, literary analyst, literary critic.
"Michal, of royal blood, the crown did wear,
A soil ungrateful to the tiller's care:
Not so the rest; for several mothers bore
To godlike David several sons before.
But since like slaves his bed they did ascend,
No true succession could their seed attend.
Of all the numerous progeny was none
So beautiful, so brave, as Absalon;
Whether inspired by some diviner lust,..."
In The 1678, an alleged Catholic conspiracy to assassinate King Charles II, known as the Popish Plot, swept across England, creating mass anti-Catholic hysteria and prompting the Exclusion Crisis of 1679.
Popish Plot & The Exclusion Crisis:
The Exclusion Crisis lasted until 1681 and consisted of three Parliamentary bills which attempted to exclude James, King Charles’s brother, from royal succession because he was a Roman Catholic rather than a Protestant.
Propaganda for and against exclusion was produced on all sides for the duration of the crisis, most famously John Dryden’s anti-exclusionist satire Absalom and Achitophel (1681). Because Shaftesbury had lots of supporters in 1679 and it seemed likely that the bill would pass, Charles exercised his royal prerogative to dissolve parliament. Successive parliaments were called in 1680 and were likewise dissolved. In 1681 the Exclusion Bill passed the House of Commons, but was defeated in the House of Lords. James was not excluded from the succession. But the Exclusion Crisis was not an anomaly. The exclusionists, increasingly known by the label ‘Whigs’, continued to lobby against Catholicism and the threat of what they viewed as ‘arbitrary government’. The parties that were crystallized in the debates about exclusion—Whigs and Tories—dominated politics through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Dryden’s poem is a thinly veiled satirical roast of the political drama that pervaded English society in the late 1670s and early 1680s, and no one is spared his wit.
According to Dryden,
“the true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction,” and “Absalom and Achitophel” is an attempt to that end. Through the use of satire and allegory in “Absalom and Achitophel,” Dryden ultimately argues that the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Crisis were devious ploys to divert the rightful order of succession and prevent James II from ascending the throne.
Through the deceit of Achitophel, a politician who sows dissention among the Jews, Dryden allegorizes the Popish Plot and implies the fabricated plot is merely an attempt to breed strife between David and the government, or, figuratively, between Parliament and Charles II of England. In Israel, metaphorically England, the “Good Old Cause revive[s] a plot” to “raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.” The “Good Old Cause” is a reference to the Puritan Rebellions of the English Civil War (1642–1651), which pitted King Charles I, who was supported by the Catholics, against Parliament, which was supported by the Puritans, a form of Protestantism. The war was a victory for Parliament; Charles I was executed and the Commonwealth of England was created. The monarchy was restored in 1660, and Charles II ascended the throne. With this reference, Dryden implies that the Popish Plot is little more than a revival of the Good Old Cause and an attempt to dethrone a king. In the poem, rumor begins to spread that King David’s life is “Endangered by a brother and wife. / Thus in a pageant show, a plot is made, / And peace itself is war in masquerade.”
Titus Oates, a priest of the Church of England and the mastermind of the Popish Plot, accused Charles’s brother James and Charles’s wife, Queen Catherine, of involvement in the plot against Charles. Dryden suggests that Oates’s claims are nonsense—the plot is a “pageant show,” a charade—and such claims amount to a “war in masquerade,” as the desired outcome, to remove a man who is destined to be king out of royal succession, is similar to that of the English Civil War.
Ultimately, the plot fails “for want of common sense,” but it has a “deep and dangerous consequence.” The Popish Plot, Dryden implies, was destined to fail because it completely lacked wisdom. However, the paranoia and anti-Catholic sentiments the plot churned up led directly to the Exclusion Crisis, which again pitted Parliament against the king. Members of Parliament pushed for James to be removed from royal succession, and Charles adamantly supported his brother.
In Absalom and Achitophel,Dryden discusses many of the men who support Achitophel and his plan to strip David of his power. In this way, Dryden also satirizes the politicians who supported the Exclusion Bill, portraying them as despicable men
“who think too little and who talk too much.”
Thus, Dryden implies that their proposed law to keep Roman Catholics from the throne is likewise foolish and dangerous. Achitophel, who encourages Absalom to rebel against his father, is a contemptable man who resolves “to ruin or to rule the state.”Achitophel is a representation of Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, a Member of Parliament and founder of the Whig party, who opposed absolute monarchy in favor of a more democratic approach. Cooper was a major proponent of the Exclusion Bill, and Dryden implies Cooper intended to use the bill to either take the government over, or completely take it down Balaam and Caleb represent Theophilus Hastings and Arthur Capel respectively, both politicians and members of the Whig party who supported the Exclusion Bill. Dryden therefore implies these men are low-level politicians who have little sense and no influence. While Balaam and Caleb may have little sense, “not bull-faced Jonas,” Dryden says, “who could statutes draw / To mean rebellion and make treason law.” Jonas represents Sir William Jones, a Member of Parliament who supported the Exclusion Bill. As Attorney General, Jones prosecuted several Catholics who were falsely accused and executed during the Popish Plot. In this way, Dryden implies that Jones, especially teamed with Cooper, can do real and lasting damage to the country and to the monarchy. Achitophel and his supporters begin to stoke “the malcontents of all the Israelites” and sway public opinion, and the Sanhedrins, the Jewish high council, becomes “infected with this public lunacy” as well. The Sanhedrins, of course, are a metaphor for the English Parliament, and the “public lunacy” is the Exclusion Crisis. Through his satirical poem, Dryden had hoped the people of England and Parliament would see the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis for what they really were plots devised to keep James II, a Roman Catholic, out of royal succession.
Here I would like to share some recorded videos by Dr.Dilip Barad Sir.
