In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The Ravishing Restoration: Aphra Behn, Violence, and Comedy
  • Jennifer Frangos (bio)
The Ravishing Restoration: Aphra Behn, Violence, and Comedy, by Ann Marie Stewart. Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 2010. 134 pp. $49.99.

This slim volume sets out “to delve deeply into how and why Behn utilizes sexual violence in her plays, to critique the critical impact that the scenes have in shaping and defining the comedy of intrigue genre, and finally, to assess how her creations are unique, complex, and visually dynamic performances”—a tall order in a mere 134 pages, a count which includes front matter, notes, appendices, and (one-page) index (p. 21). Though I am not convinced that Ann Marie Stewart ultimately pulls off any of these stated goals in The Ravishing Restoration: Aphra Behn, Violence, and Comedy—especially the why question, but that may say more about my methodology as a critic than anything else—there is certainly enough in this book to provoke and inspire scholars interested in Restoration drama, Behn, and feminist critical studies. As well, Stewart is a professor of theatre at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown and often includes commentary on the staging of scenes and remarks on directorial interpretations and casting decisions that could affect the meaning of a scene or of an entire play, which are refreshing reminders that the texts in question were, and continue to be, performed.

Stewart addresses her foci through a discussion of the nine scenes of rape or attempted rape in Behn’s plays (eight comedies, one tragedy), contextualized by comparisons to other Restoration playwrights’ treatments of sexual violence, some biographical and historical information, and modern feminist theory on rape and sexual violence. The introduction presents a brief but targeted overview of Behn’s work and its reception, theatre history and gender politics in the Restoration period, critical scholarly work on Behn, and studies of rape in literature by Lynn Higgins and Brenda Silver, Tanya Horeck, Sarah Projansky, and Jean Marsden.

The first chapter surveys about sixty plays written between 1663 and [End Page 164] 1722 by writers including John Dryden, Susanna Centlivre, William Wycherly, Sir John Vanbrugh, William Congreve, the Earl of Rochester, and Mary Pix and considers in more detail fourteen of them that contain scenes of rape or attempted rape. The first part of the chapter focuses on the comedy of intrigue and Behn’s innovations in the genre; in the shorter second part, Stewart considers tragedy, tragicomedy, and she-tragedy. Stewart finds that most of Behn’s contemporaries, especially writers of comedy, dealt with sexual violence in a “playfully facetious” way, “in that they parody the conventions of sexual pursuit and upper-class courtship rituals” and thus represent ravishment or seduction rather than rape (p. 26). An example would be a scene from John Crowne’s City Politiques (1688) in which Artall chases Lucinda around the stage, but she very obviously “runs from him . . . only to prolong the chase, not to escape” (p. 27); near the end of the chase, she cries, “Help! Help! Will you force me?” but immediately follows with the aside, “I can’t resist him” (qtd. on pp. 27–28). Tragic playwrights were far more likely to write about rape and with far bloodier results; “in Restoration tragedy,” Stewart writes, female victims of rape “must always die, killed either by the man who rapes them or by their own hand” (p. 49).

Chapter two isolates and analyzes the rape or attempted-rape scenes in Behn’s plays in order to appreciate how she treats this subject matter differently than her contemporaries. Behn routinely includes a verbal debate between characters, pitting male desire against female chastity, which is fairly common in tragedy but rarely found in Restoration comedy. In her plays, it is only when the debate breaks down that the violence ensues. Very often, she has a passerby intervene to save the heroine and preserve her virtue, and in two scenes—one in The Town Fopp (1676) and one in The Dutch Lover (1673)—the heroine saves herself. As well, her heroines never commit suicide. In all but The Lucky Chance (1686), victims of sexual violence marry well by the end of the...

pdf