Episode Summary
Executive Summary: The episode examines Aphra Behn as a groundbreaking Restoration writer, spy, royalist, and early professional woman author. The panel traces her uncertain origins, espionage, theatre career, bawdy style, political loyalties, and the later decline and revival of her reputation, arguing that her enduring significance lies in her complexity and her influence on women’s writing and gender politics.
Main Topics: Aphra Behn’s obscure early life and education (Priority: 5/5): The panel stresses how little is known about Behn’s childhood and family, but argues she was likely humbly born and self-taught, using intelligence, connections, and access to elite libraries to become highly educated. Spycraft and colonial experience (Priority: 5/5): Discussion covers Behn’s probable service as a spy in Suriname and Antwerp, her code name Astraya, and the evidence that she wrote reports and repeatedly asked for money while working for the Crown. Restoration theatre and professional writing (Priority: 5/5): The guests explain how the reopened Restoration stage created new opportunities, especially through patent theatres, women playing women, and profit-sharing for playwrights, allowing Behn to become the first English woman to live by writing. Sex, wit, and female agency in Behn’s drama (Priority: 5/5): Her plays are described as bawdy, clever, and socially risky, often centering on women navigating a patriarchal sexual economy through wit, performance, and strategic self-fashioning. Royalism, religion, and libertinism (Priority: 4/5): The panel explores Behn’s staunch support for Charles II and James II, her sympathy for court culture, and her apparent skepticism toward religion, alongside debate about whether her ‘libertinism’ was sexual, aesthetic, or political. Fiction, Oronooko, and colonial critique (Priority: 5/5): The conversation highlights her 1688 novella Oronooko as a major work that combines political allegory, colonial brutality, and the suffering of an enslaved African prince, showing her range beyond drama. Reputation, decline, and modern recovery (Priority: 4/5): Speakers explain how 18th- and 19th-century moral sensibilities pushed Behn into obscurity, while modern critics, students, and productions have restored her status as a major literary figure.
Key Arguments: Behn’s lack of archival traces reflects her humble background and the fact that she was not born into a family that preserved letters and papers. Her education was likely self-made, achieved through wit, social mobility, and access to libraries and learned circles. She probably used spying and colonial service as early income streams, but those careers were unreliable, pushing her toward professional playwriting. The Restoration theatre was a reinvention, not merely a revival, and its structure created a market in which Behn could earn money from performance and publication. Behn’s comedy succeeds by giving audiences familiar Restoration patterns while complicating them with morally and psychologically complex women. Her works repeatedly expose the double standard: men may act as libertines, but women who do so are punished or socially unplaceable. Behn’s royalism and feminism are not simple opposites; her support for monarchy is often framed through domestic, classical, or paternal imagery. Oronooko is both a political novel and a colonial critique, with strong implications about slavery, empire, and state violence. Her later reputation collapsed because the Restoration was recast as corrupt, and Behn became emblematic of female impropriety rather than literary skill. Her current revival owes much to interest in early fiction, gender studies, and her dramatic treatment of ambiguity and contradiction.
Data Points: Birth year: 1640 - Behn was born as the Civil War began. Death year: 1689 - She died after the Glorious Revolution. First English woman to live by writing: Yes - Presented as the first English woman to make her living from authorship. Number of plays staged: 18 plays - Between 1670 and 1688, she had eighteen plays performed. Dryden’s plays in same period: 14 plays - Cited to show Behn’s remarkable theatrical productivity relative to male contemporaries. Duration of dramatic career: Nearly 2 decades - She ran on the stage from around 1670/1671 to 1688. Restoration theatre companies: 2 patent companies - The King’s Company and the Duke’s Company dominated the revived theatre. Theatre closure: 1642 - Used to explain the break between Shakespearean theatre and Restoration drama. Approximate pay for a script: £8 - Mentioned as an earlier model of playwright compensation in comparison with Restoration profits. Approximate pay for publishing a play: About £10 - Revenue could also come from print publication a few months later. Political dedication date: 1681 - She dedicated The Second Part of The Rover to the future James II. Publication date of Oronooko: 1688 - The novella appeared as James II entered political crisis. Code name: 160 - Behn was reportedly codenamed 160 during espionage activity in Antwerp.
Pivotal Quotes: "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." — Virginia Woolf: Cited by the panel as a famous modern reevaluation of Behn’s importance. "the first English woman to make her living from writing" — Narrator: Used to establish Behn’s historical significance at the start of the discussion. "Christianity is the last shift of routed argument" — Panelist describing Behn’s poetry: Offered as evidence of Behn’s unusually skeptical, near-atheistic stance toward religion.
Implications: Behn now matters as a foundational figure for women’s authorship, Restoration drama, and early fiction. Her work invites modern readers to rethink gender, power, empire, and performance, and it remains stageable because its contradictions still feel contemporary.