It has been sitting in my to-read pile (which hasn’t yet quite taken over the house) for a long time, but I’ve finally got around to reading Maureen Duffy’s The Passionate Shepherdess: The Life of Aphra Behn<\/I>. It was published first in 1977, although I’ve been reading the preface-updated 2000 paperback. Since it is such a popular topic I’ve no doubt aspects of the account have been modified by subsequent research, but it is an excellent read, and a decent piece of what in 1977 was real recovery work.<\/p>\n
I’ll share just a little part that appealed, talking about her play Sir Timothy Tawdry<\/i>:<\/p>\n Dellmor: Gods what an odious thing mere coupling is! By introducing the brothel and Betty Flauntit’s attempts to get Bellmor for his money, Aphra Behn has made a parallel between prostitution and forced marriage …<\/p>\n Bellmor: Will you now show me some of your arts of love? You can see why later, more genteel generations had troubles with Aphra – suuch bluntness wouldn’t come back into fashion for centuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It has been sitting in my to-read pile (which hasn’t yet quite taken over the house) for a long time, but I’ve finally got around to reading Maureen Duffy’s The Passionate Shepherdess: The Life of Aphra Behn. It was published first in 1977, although I’ve been reading the preface-updated 2000 paperback. Since it is such […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-womens-history","author-natalieben"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philobiblon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\nA thing which every sensual animal
\nCan do – as well as we – but prithee tell me,
\nIs there naught else between the nobler creatures?
\nFlauntit: Not that I know of, sir – Lord he’s very silly or very innocent, I hope he has his maidenhead; if so and rich too, Oh what a booty were this for me!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nFor I am very apt to learn of beauty – Gods –
\nWhat is’t I negotiate for? – a woman!
\nMaking a bargain to possess a woman!
\nOh, never, never!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n