Název: Aphra Behn's black body : sex, lies & narrativity in Oroonoko
Zdrojový dokument: Brno studies in English. 2011, roč. 37, č. 2, s. [7]-29
Rozsah
[7]-29
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Trvalý odkaz (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2011-2-2
Trvalý odkaz (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/118137
Type: Článek
Jazyk
Licence: Neurčená licence
Upozornění: Tyto citace jsou generovány automaticky. Nemusí být zcela správně podle citačních pravidel.
Abstrakt(y)
This paper traces the peculiar relationship between Aphra Behn, a 17th century novelist, poet, playwright and translator (by all accounts the first professional writer in English, let alone the first woman to make her living by her pen) and the hero of her novel Oroonoko (an African prince enslaved in Surinam). Although Behn ennobles the young man in the tradition of Rousseau's "noble savage," educating him above his owners and marrying him to a similarly "pure" African maiden, certain discrepancies stand out, among them the facial features of the two slaves (clearly European), the couple's prim and almost-Victorian sensibility, and the Christian brutality of the white slavelords, intent upon destroying Oroonoko for a sacrifice beyond their comprehension. Previous research addresses Oroonoko's value as an abolitionist work, remarking upon the romance between "lesser" equals as among Europeans, or makes political comparisons between the visage of the noble prince and the English monarchs. Neglected in the literary appreciations is Behn's evident passion for her subject, in its colonial context of illicit interracial love and possession. Is Oroonoko a courageous celebration of racial difference itself, in the only conceivable means of presentation available to a 17th century woman? Does Oroonoko stand in as a metaphor for an encounter of yet another kind, the trespass of race, class and gender? Couched in the poetic similes of Restoration art and artifice, Oroonoko is a story of strangled violence. It is the tale of a woman writer translating desire and meaning into flesh – black flesh, publicly consumed. Behn's authorial "I" is transgressive, transformative. Artfully concealed between covers, Behn projects her bound English body into forbidden territories: foreign darkness, black otherness, and desires too dangerous for words.
Reference
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[8] Cameron, William J. (1961) New Light on Aphra Behn. Auckland: University of Auckland Press.
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[17] Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar (2000) The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
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[19] MacCarthy, B. G. (1946) Women Writers: Their Contribution to the English Novel 1621–1774. Oxford: Cork University Press.
[20] Mahl, Mary R., and Helene Koon (1977) The Female Spectator: English Women Writers Before 1800. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
[21] Marcus, Jacob R., and Stanley F. Chyet (eds.) (1974) Historical Essay on the Colony of Surinam 1788. Simon Cohen (trans.) Publication of the American Jewish Archives, No. VIII. Cincinnati, OH: American Jewish Archives.
[22] Mbembe, Achille (1992) 'Provisional Notes on the Postcolony'. Africa 62(1), 3–37. | DOI 10.2307/1160062
[23] Pepys, Samuel (2000) The Diary of Samuel Pepys. R. Latham and W. Matthews (ed.) 11 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press [Originally published: 1970–83].
[24] Pope, Alexander (1939) Vol. IV of the Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope. John Butt (ed.) London: Methuen.
[25] Riviere, Joan (1966) 'Womanliness as a Masquerade'. In: Ruitenbeek, Hendrik M. (ed.) Psychoanalysis and Female Sexuality. New Haven: College and University Press. 209–220.
[26] Scheie, Timothy (1992) 'Barthes' Lover as Spectator: Towards a Theatre of Jouissance'. Etudes Théatrales 10(2), 181–188.
[27] Southerne, Thomas (1976) Oroonoko. Maximillian E. Novak and David Stuart Rodes (ed.) Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
[28] Todd, Janet (1993) Gender, Art and Death. New York: Continuum.
[29] Ware, Vron (1992) Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism and History. London: Verso.
[30] Yaeger, Patricia (1988) Honey-Mad Women: Emancipatory Strategies in Women's Writing. New York: Columbia University Press.
[2] Bakhtin, Mikhail (1981) The Dialogic Imagination. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
[3] Baum, Rob (2003) Female Absence: Women, Theatre and Other Metaphors. Brussels: Peter Lang.
[4] Behn, Aphra (1990) Five Plays. Maureen Duffy (ed.) London: Methuen Drama.
[5] Behn, Aphra (1992) Oroonoko, The Rover, and Other Works. Janet Todd (ed.) Harmondsworth: Penguin.
[6] Behn, Aphra (1953) Two Tales: The Royal Slave and The Fair Jilt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Folio Society.
[7] Benveniste, Emile (1971) Problems in General Linguistics. Mary Elizabeth Meek (trans.). Miami: University of Miami Press.
[8] Cameron, William J. (1961) New Light on Aphra Behn. Auckland: University of Auckland Press.
[9] Campbell, Elaine (1985) 'Aphra Behn's Surinam Interlude'. Kunapipi 7(2–3), 23–35.
[10] Cixous, Hélene, and Catherine Clement (1986) The Newly Born Woman. Betsy Wing (trans.) Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[11] Diamond, Elin (1989a) 'Gestus and Signature in Aphra Behn's The Rover'. ELH 56(3), 519–541. | DOI 10.2307/2873196
[12] Diamond, Elin (1989b) 'Mimesis, Mimicry and the True-Real'. Modern Drama 32(1), 58–72. | DOI 10.3138/md.32.1.6
[13] Duffy, Maureen (1977) The Passionate Shepherdess, Aphra Behn 1640–89. London: Methuen.
[14] Ezell, Margaret (1993) Writing Women's Literary History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
[15] Ferguson, Moira (1992) 'Oroonoko: Birth of a Paradigm'. New Literary History 23, 339–359. | DOI 10.2307/469240
[16] Fogarty, Anne (2000) 'Looks that Kill: Violence and Representation in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko'. In: Plasa, Carl, and Betty J. Ring (eds.) The Discourse of Slavery: Aphra Behn to Toni Morrison. London: Routledge. 1–17.
[17] Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar (2000) The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
[18] Love, Harold (1993) Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
[19] MacCarthy, B. G. (1946) Women Writers: Their Contribution to the English Novel 1621–1774. Oxford: Cork University Press.
[20] Mahl, Mary R., and Helene Koon (1977) The Female Spectator: English Women Writers Before 1800. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
[21] Marcus, Jacob R., and Stanley F. Chyet (eds.) (1974) Historical Essay on the Colony of Surinam 1788. Simon Cohen (trans.) Publication of the American Jewish Archives, No. VIII. Cincinnati, OH: American Jewish Archives.
[22] Mbembe, Achille (1992) 'Provisional Notes on the Postcolony'. Africa 62(1), 3–37. | DOI 10.2307/1160062
[23] Pepys, Samuel (2000) The Diary of Samuel Pepys. R. Latham and W. Matthews (ed.) 11 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press [Originally published: 1970–83].
[24] Pope, Alexander (1939) Vol. IV of the Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope. John Butt (ed.) London: Methuen.
[25] Riviere, Joan (1966) 'Womanliness as a Masquerade'. In: Ruitenbeek, Hendrik M. (ed.) Psychoanalysis and Female Sexuality. New Haven: College and University Press. 209–220.
[26] Scheie, Timothy (1992) 'Barthes' Lover as Spectator: Towards a Theatre of Jouissance'. Etudes Théatrales 10(2), 181–188.
[27] Southerne, Thomas (1976) Oroonoko. Maximillian E. Novak and David Stuart Rodes (ed.) Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
[28] Todd, Janet (1993) Gender, Art and Death. New York: Continuum.
[29] Ware, Vron (1992) Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism and History. London: Verso.
[30] Yaeger, Patricia (1988) Honey-Mad Women: Emancipatory Strategies in Women's Writing. New York: Columbia University Press.