'All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn'

[douqi]

In university I took a course on twentieth century women's literature in English. One of the books we read for that was Virginia Woolf's A Room of Her Own. In it, as part of constructing a critical historical account of women's writing in England, Woolf discusses the Restoration era writer Aphra Behn, one of the first women to earn her living by writing professionally.

At the time, our lecturer gave us a brief autobiographical sketch of Aphra Behn to contextualise the reference. What he did not tell us was that she wrote at least one genderfucked lesbian poem. Or that she may have been bi. I had to discover that for myself at my current great age. Thanks, Malaysian higher education.

Comments

[lunarriviera]

oh my god Behn was SUCH a weirdo. not only was she a SPY ("Agent 160"!) but she lied all over the place about her life so we hardly know anything. also there was not only a 3-volume novel about sibling incest (well, he's her brother-in-law, but it was still shocking at the time) and a bizarre poem about male impotence. the more you find out about her, the more completely agog you become—

[douqi]

I was extremely intrigued by the sibling incest novel! I probably should start looking more into stuff from the Restoration Era and prior.