Utopian Negotiation: Aphra Behn and Margaret Cavendish

10. The Widow Ranter (1689) and The Rover (1677): Honor in the New World

• 250 10 The Widow Ranter (1689) and The Rover (1677) Honor in the New World Behn’s play The Widow Ranter1 deals with the escapades of the English General Bacon in colonial Virginia. Bacon’s interests, like Oroonoko’s, seem divided. The romantically inspired Oroonoko, demoted to a slave, asserts his royal prerogative as leader of his fellow slaves; Bacon, a man on the rise who possesses heroic aspirations, figures as the democratically elected leader of the common people. The implications of these parallels and differences are intriguing. Bacon is nominally a representative of English colonialism in the New World. When he thinks the Virginian Council fails in defending the planters against Indian attack, he becomes their general without a commission. As a consequence, he ends up fighting the council troops as well as the Indians. His motives seem complex, no less so because Behn’s play refers to historical events that show a commander by the same name.2 There are no clear signs in the play of ideological subversion , though Bacon rebels against royally sanctioned Law.3 Indeed, he wages the war in the name of the English king. Yet his conception of himself as a romantic hero destined for great exploits may interfere with his political loyalty. It may also partly explain his impatience with the council. His Virginia figures as the location for a 1. The play was performed a few months after Aphra Behn’s death in 1689. 2. See Appendix A for an account of these historical events. 3. See Appendix B for critics linking Behn’s Bacon to the historical Bacon. The Widow Ranter and The Rover | 251 “new Rome.” In the glorious image of an emperor, Bacon allies himself with the common people against the council that denies him his great cause: “the whole Country flock’d to him” and “He took the opportunity” (Behn 1993a, Act 1, Scene 1, p. 215).4 He pleads: “I call it doing of my self that right, which upon just demand the Council did refuse me” (Act 2, Scene 4, p. 246). Seeking glory in love as well as in war, he falls for the divine Indian Queen Semernia. Friendly, a fellow Englishman, even insinuates that Bacon is in love with romance for its own sake and that romance prompts him to pursue his own heroic image: “This Thirst of Glory cherish’d by sullen Melancholy,5 I believe, was the first motive that made him in love with the young Indian queen, fancying no Hero ought to be without his Princess. And this was the reason why he so earnestly press’d for a Commission, to be made General against the Indians” (Scene 1, p. 215). Behn seems to share some of Friendly’s skepticism about Bacon’s heroic role. Politically, Bacon’s passionate wooing of Semernia must be the utmost imperialist provocation to her husband, the Indian chief Cavernio. Viewed in terms of the etherealizing spirit of romance, however, it may suggest an honorable idealism as much as a self-serving motive.6 After killing his beloved by mistake, Bacon drinks poison in order to join her spirit. As he lies dying on the battlefield, he realizes that the ideal he seeks is not of this world: “I have too long surviv’d my Queen and Glory, those two bright Stars that influenc’dmyLifearesettoallEternity”(Act5,Scene4,p.289).Hedieswhile yearning for transcendence. Colonialism and romantic idealism mingle in intricate ways. The ideological implications of this call for examination. Though a colonialist, Bacon craves freedom from the council’s demand of conformity. He not only serves the regime, but as a voyager to the New World he is also a utopian seeker of a new order, drawing on pastoral as well as romantic ideals. He dreams of a more honorable society than contemporary Virginia or England, but finds his fellow Virginians wanting. To 4. References to The Widow Ranter hereafter are to the 1993 edition. 5. The commissioners’ report describes Bacon as “of an ominous, pensive, melancholly Aspect” (Berry, Jeffreys, and Moryson 1993, 186). 6. As Kettle points out, the gallant knights of romance tend to idolize ladies who are “usually married to somebody else” (Kettle 1967, 32). 252 | Utopian Negotiation him, the discrepancy between ideal vision and the world at hand is striking; he elicits a pastoral sigh: “how fragrant are the Groves!” Fearless, lieutenant general to Bacon, responds by lamenting...