Aphra Behn's Oroonoko

We may read selections from Aphra Behn's Oroonoko alongside the excerpts from Olaudah Equiano's and possibly Harriet Jacobs' slave narratives.  Oroonoko, however, was a novel (that may or may not have been autobiographical) written about 100 years before Equiano's time and over 150 years before Jacobs'.  Some scholars argue that Oroonoko even predates the novel.  Others argue that the protagonist's royal blood was much more important to the author than his race was and that she was using this story to comment on the then-current political situation in England.  (In November of the year that Oroonoko was published, James II fled from England and was deposed.  The new king was his Protestant son-in-law, William of Orange.)

In this novel, Aphra Behn, a novelist/playwright/political pamphleteer *and* one of the first professional women writers in England, tells the story of her friendship with Oroonoko, an African of royal blood who is kidnapped into slavery and ultimately rebels against the Europeans.  Oroonoko is unsuccessful and is then executed.

The picture above is from Thomas Southerne's successful play that was based on Behn's novel.  In this play, Oroonoko's wife is depicted as a European.  Behn, however, depicted this woman as a dark-skinned African. 

For more background about Oroonoko, see these sites:

http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng211/aphra_behn_oroonoko.htm

http://www.wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/oroonoko.html

http://www.english.bham.ac.uk/staff/tom/website/work99/bp3/Behn/essay/essay1.html

http://www.litkicks.com/Oroonoko/

As you can see, it is controversial whether or not Oroonoko is a novel--and how autobiographical it was. 

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/11/aphra_behn_still_a_radical_exa.html

For more information about Behn and her career, see these sites:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/behn_aphra.shtml

http://www.lit-arts.net/Behn/chron-ab.htm

http://www.luminarium.org/eightlit/behn/behnbio.htm

For links to her works (poems, plays, & novels), see this site at Luminarium:

http://www.luminarium.org/eightlit/behn/behnbib.htm

I've enjoyed reading her play The Rover!  Hellena in this play is a feisty girl.