The Trail Blazing Playwright and Pioneer of English Literature
Alphra Behn (1640-1689), one of the first English women to earn a living through writing, occupies a distinguished place in literary history. As a prolific playwright, poet, translator, and novelist during the Restoration period, she broke gender barriers and paved the way for future generations of female writers. her bold themes, innovative storytelling, and unapologetic voice challenged societal conventions, establishing her as a pioneering figure in English literature.
Artist: Studio of Sir Peter Lely (Dutch, 1618–1680)
Date: ca. 1675
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage. She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines such as John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. Behn wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, Behn declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming poem to the new king William III. She died shortly after.
She is remembered in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own: "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." Her grave is not included in the Poets' Corner but lies in the East Cloister near the steps to the church.
Her best-known works are Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave, sometimes described as an early novel, and the play The Rover.
She died on 16 April 1689, and was buried in the East Cloister of Westminster Abbey. The inscription on her tombstone reads: "Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defence enough against Mortality." She was quoted as stating that she had led a "life dedicated to pleasure and poetry."
