Aphra Behn: The Comedies (review)

In Aphra Behn: The Comedies, part of the Palgrave Macmillan series Analyzing Texts, Kate Aughterson provides a remarkable teaching tool that leads the reader through a detailed textual analysis of three of Behn's plays, The Rover, The Feigned Courtesans, and The Lucky Chance. Aughterson has created an entertaining and effective guide to textual analysis, particularly in discovering political and social issues within a written work, as well as imagining how the play would read when staged. While the use of only three plays might seem to limit the scope of the work, instead it allows Aughterson to include large segments of text and an extremely thorough study of each. The book presents a valuable model for readers unfamiliar with Restoration drama, Aphra Behn, or textual analysis.

The body of the work is divided into two sections. The first employs examples of text from the plays, followed by a thorough analysis of each passage. A list of conclusions is discussed at the end of every chapter as well as a summary of the variety of analytical methods used. Finally, Aughterson ends each chapter by suggesting further work that will reinforce the lessons raised. Rather than focus on particular pieces of text, the second section focuses broadly on Behn's literary career, the Restoration contexts within which Behn's work is situated, and, finally, a summary of the critical writing on Behn and an examination of several famous productions. As a whole, the two sections complement each other and reinforce the points made by Aughterson throughout.

In "Part 1: Analysing Behn's Comedies," Aughterson begins her first three chapters by focusing on elements found in the plays: "Openings," "Endings," and "Discovery Scenes." The author guides the reader in examining the possibility of sexual and social connotations provided by Behn's language and stage directions, and encourages the reader to imagine the potential of the plays as staged. Aughterson's discussion of The Feigned Courtesans highlights how the staging "equally puts into perspective the debate about arranged marriages and marriages for love, asking us to abhor the former and celebrate the latter" (42). By having one woman forced to marry and another free to choose, Behn's "dramatic scenic structure . . . enacts a contemporary sexual debate and asks the audience to choose the more radical view" (42–43). Aughterson is especially adept at revealing the connections between Behn's staging and the political and social commentary inherent in her writing.

Aughterson then turns from staging practices to focus on character in the "Heroines and Whores" and "Rakes and Gallants" in chapters 4 and 5. Here, the language of the various characters is examined, particularly how the language of the plays ties Behn's work to the politics (particularly sexual politics) of Charles II's court, as well as how it serves to "crystallize and focus debates about female sexuality" (100). Aughterson also observes the public versus private behavior that defines masculine identity within the world of the plays and how that extends to Restoration London. Behn frequently provides multiple variations on character types, and the ability of the audience to observe similar, almost repeated behaviors in juxtaposition raises "key questions about . . . economics, sexuality and self-determination" (100). Aughterson carefully guides the reader through the examination of each character type and provides clear evidence as to how they affect the political discussion within the play.

Chapters 6 and 7, "Multiplying Plots" and "Staging," reinforce the ideas of the previous chapters. According to Aughterson, Behn's doubling and tripling of events through multiple plots further enables the audience to comprehend the discourse within her plays, as when the "replicative violence of The Rover, applied successively by different men to the same woman, makes the actions, ideology and characters of the gallants appear dangerous and endemic rather than amusing or comic" (144). In addition, Behn uses the stage to confirm or contrast the image or idea of the character: Blunt falls into the sewer in The Rover, and "his physical environment exactly echoes...