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truepenny02/21/2011: Due to spam, I'm turning off comments for this post.
I'm giving up on numbering these. It's just going to depress me.
Behn, Aphra. The Rover. 1677. Ed. Frederick M. Link. Regents Restoration Drama. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967.
No, I'd never read The Rover before. (The one time I was assigned Aphra Behn for a class, it was for a Renaissance narrative class, and thus we read Oroonoko.) And the nice thing about plays is, they're short. Even my currently mutilated ability to concentrate on narrative can manage a play. And unlike modern plays, The Rover does not demand that one take it seriously. I tried Angels in America a few months back and could not get through the Meaningfulness and the Social Commentary. (Which is not to say that that makes Angels in America bad or stupid or wrong--just that I couldn't hack it.) The Rover has some social commentary, but it doesn't demand that you PAY ATTENTION (with the concomitant whack over the back of the head with a ruler) to it.
I do wish, however, that when the University of Nebraska redesigned its Regents Drama series (going from the rather ugly pale turquoise covers to the very snazzy purple covers), they'd at least splurged and gotten someone to write a new introduction. Because Professor Link, writing in 1967, did not feel any need to discuss the thing about this play that--I think--cries out for discussion, namely Willmore's attempted rape of Florinda. (Poor Florinda. Like Florimel in The Faerie Queene, she exists mostly to be predated upon by men. Clearly it's something about that Flor- root; it's like hanging out a sign.) Professor Link, in 1967, apparently does not find that this problematizes our opinion of Willmore as a gay blade. In fact, he ends his introduction by saying, "the Rover himself embodies much of the wit, gaiety, and freedom associated with the comedy of the Restoration. Fortunately, the cynicism, amorality, and waste in the lives of many of his historical counterparts need not inhibit our pleasure in the play" (xvi).
Um, excuse me? Willmore is nothing but cynicism, amorality, and waste. He tries to rape Florinda, he betrays Angellica Bianca (and Link discusses her responses and characterization without seeming to notice the questions thereby raised about Willmore's character), he starts fights, runs off at the mouth and gets his friends in trouble, refuses to listen or be reasoned with ... I actually like Behn's characterization a lot: Willmore's a great guy when he's sober, everything a Cavalier should be, but he's not sober very often. And when he's drunk, he's a horror.
I can think of only one other attempted rape on the Renaissance/Restoration stage (and only one accomplished rape, for that matter)--Proteus's attempted rape of Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. And that scene is notoriously problematic. Because it's not that Shakespeare--like Behn--doesn't recognize that the lady is innocent--she's not "asking for it" or anything of the sort--and it's not that Shakespeare--like Behn--doesn't recognize that what his hero is doing is wrong. It's that Shakespeare--like Behn--doesn't know how to respond.
Valentine forgives Proteus; we never get Silvia's opinion (see above re: notoriously problematic). Florinda forgives everyone--by the time everybody's identity is straightened out, Belvile's two other friends, Blunt and Frederick, have also offered to rape her, so there's a lot of forgiveness to go around. Florinda is notably lacking in interiority--a meek obedient little chess piece of a heroine--and seems rather to expect to be attacked, assaulted, and otherwise abused every time she leaves her house.
Not that she's wrong.
(Women's bodies on the Renaissance stage are frequently troped by houses--e.g., Mariana and the moated grange in Measure for Measure, Beatrice-Joanna and the fortress of Alicante in The Changeling. In The Rover a woman leaving her house, or leaving a free access to her house, is either a harlot (Angellica Bianca) or about to be mistaken for one (Florinda). Unless she is in disguise. Hellena disguises herself first as a gypsy, then as a boy, and has no trouble at all.)
The interesting scene is 3.6, after Belvile and Frederick have pulled Willmore off Florinda (and then been routed by her brother, who wants her to marry his friend Antonio). Because it's a weirdly honest, though unsatisfactory, conversation.
(Whereupon Willmore begs off until tomorrow, which reminds Belvile of another grievance and distracts him, and Willmore's just sashaying off to try his luck with a different lady--"This you say is Angellica's house; I promised the kind baggage to lie with her tonight"--when Antonio comes in and starts another fight.)
I love this scene for deconstructing romantic clichés right and left. It's not the stars, just the sack. Florinda has no innate air of Specialness to mark her. But notice that it's Frederick who says Willmore is sorry, not Willmore himself. Willmore does not do remorse. And after Belvile gets distracted, the matter is simply dropped.
Willmore's treatment of Angellica Bianca is also problematic, and those problems are also resolutely unaddressed by the play. He tries to violate Florinda physically; he succeeds in violating Angellica Bianca emotionally. And although Behn shows Angellica Bianca's despair and anger and hurt, she also seems to accept, and to expect her audience to accept, Willmore's unapologetic, "Sorry, I don't do fidelity." Even when, by the end of the scene, he's turned around and agreed to marry Hellena.
What's odd, and what has left me puzzled, is that Willmore does horrible things in this play and they seem not to have the slightest effect on how we are asked to view him. Which is why, as I said, I wish the series editors had gotten a new introduction. Because I could use a little more help.
I'm giving up on numbering these. It's just going to depress me.
Behn, Aphra. The Rover. 1677. Ed. Frederick M. Link. Regents Restoration Drama. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967.
No, I'd never read The Rover before. (The one time I was assigned Aphra Behn for a class, it was for a Renaissance narrative class, and thus we read Oroonoko.) And the nice thing about plays is, they're short. Even my currently mutilated ability to concentrate on narrative can manage a play. And unlike modern plays, The Rover does not demand that one take it seriously. I tried Angels in America a few months back and could not get through the Meaningfulness and the Social Commentary. (Which is not to say that that makes Angels in America bad or stupid or wrong--just that I couldn't hack it.) The Rover has some social commentary, but it doesn't demand that you PAY ATTENTION (with the concomitant whack over the back of the head with a ruler) to it.
I do wish, however, that when the University of Nebraska redesigned its Regents Drama series (going from the rather ugly pale turquoise covers to the very snazzy purple covers), they'd at least splurged and gotten someone to write a new introduction. Because Professor Link, writing in 1967, did not feel any need to discuss the thing about this play that--I think--cries out for discussion, namely Willmore's attempted rape of Florinda. (Poor Florinda. Like Florimel in The Faerie Queene, she exists mostly to be predated upon by men. Clearly it's something about that Flor- root; it's like hanging out a sign.) Professor Link, in 1967, apparently does not find that this problematizes our opinion of Willmore as a gay blade. In fact, he ends his introduction by saying, "the Rover himself embodies much of the wit, gaiety, and freedom associated with the comedy of the Restoration. Fortunately, the cynicism, amorality, and waste in the lives of many of his historical counterparts need not inhibit our pleasure in the play" (xvi).
Um, excuse me? Willmore is nothing but cynicism, amorality, and waste. He tries to rape Florinda, he betrays Angellica Bianca (and Link discusses her responses and characterization without seeming to notice the questions thereby raised about Willmore's character), he starts fights, runs off at the mouth and gets his friends in trouble, refuses to listen or be reasoned with ... I actually like Behn's characterization a lot: Willmore's a great guy when he's sober, everything a Cavalier should be, but he's not sober very often. And when he's drunk, he's a horror.
I can think of only one other attempted rape on the Renaissance/Restoration stage (and only one accomplished rape, for that matter)--Proteus's attempted rape of Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. And that scene is notoriously problematic. Because it's not that Shakespeare--like Behn--doesn't recognize that the lady is innocent--she's not "asking for it" or anything of the sort--and it's not that Shakespeare--like Behn--doesn't recognize that what his hero is doing is wrong. It's that Shakespeare--like Behn--doesn't know how to respond.
Valentine forgives Proteus; we never get Silvia's opinion (see above re: notoriously problematic). Florinda forgives everyone--by the time everybody's identity is straightened out, Belvile's two other friends, Blunt and Frederick, have also offered to rape her, so there's a lot of forgiveness to go around. Florinda is notably lacking in interiority--a meek obedient little chess piece of a heroine--and seems rather to expect to be attacked, assaulted, and otherwise abused every time she leaves her house.
Not that she's wrong.
(Women's bodies on the Renaissance stage are frequently troped by houses--e.g., Mariana and the moated grange in Measure for Measure, Beatrice-Joanna and the fortress of Alicante in The Changeling. In The Rover a woman leaving her house, or leaving a free access to her house, is either a harlot (Angellica Bianca) or about to be mistaken for one (Florinda). Unless she is in disguise. Hellena disguises herself first as a gypsy, then as a boy, and has no trouble at all.)
The interesting scene is 3.6, after Belvile and Frederick have pulled Willmore off Florinda (and then been routed by her brother, who wants her to marry his friend Antonio). Because it's a weirdly honest, though unsatisfactory, conversation.
WILLMORE. Why, how the devil should I know Florinda?
BELVILE. Ah, plague of your ignorance! If it had not been Florinda, must you be a beast? A brute? A senseless swine?
WILLMORE. Well, sir, you see I am endued with patience: I can bear. Though egad, y'are very free with me, methinks. I was in good hopes the quarrel would have been on my side, for so uncivilly interrupting me.
BELVILE. Peace, brute, whilst thou'rt safe. Oh, I'm distracted!
WILLMORE. Nay, nay, I'm an unlucky dog, that's certain.
BELVILE. Ah, curse upon the star that ruled my birth, or whatsoever other influence that makes me still so wretched.
WILLMORE. Thou break'st my heart with these complaints. There is no star in fault, no influence but sack, the cursed sack I drunk.
FREDERICK. Why, how the devil came you so drunk?
WILLMORE. Why, how the devil came you so sober?
BELVILE. A curse upon his thin skull, he was always beforehand that way.
FREDERICK. Prithee, dear colonel, forgive him; he's sorry for his fault.
BELVILE. He's always so after he has done a mischief. A plague on all such brutes!
WILLMORE. By this light, I took her for an errant harlot.
BELVILE. Damn your debauched opinion! Tell me, sot, hadst thou so much sense and light about thee to distinguish her woman, andd couldst not see something about her face and person to strike an awful reverence into thy soul?
WILLMORE. Faith no, I considered her as mere a woman as I could wish.
BELVILE. 'Sdeath, I have no patience. Draw, or I'll kill you!
(3.6.1-28)
(Whereupon Willmore begs off until tomorrow, which reminds Belvile of another grievance and distracts him, and Willmore's just sashaying off to try his luck with a different lady--"This you say is Angellica's house; I promised the kind baggage to lie with her tonight"--when Antonio comes in and starts another fight.)
I love this scene for deconstructing romantic clichés right and left. It's not the stars, just the sack. Florinda has no innate air of Specialness to mark her. But notice that it's Frederick who says Willmore is sorry, not Willmore himself. Willmore does not do remorse. And after Belvile gets distracted, the matter is simply dropped.
Willmore's treatment of Angellica Bianca is also problematic, and those problems are also resolutely unaddressed by the play. He tries to violate Florinda physically; he succeeds in violating Angellica Bianca emotionally. And although Behn shows Angellica Bianca's despair and anger and hurt, she also seems to accept, and to expect her audience to accept, Willmore's unapologetic, "Sorry, I don't do fidelity." Even when, by the end of the scene, he's turned around and agreed to marry Hellena.
What's odd, and what has left me puzzled, is that Willmore does horrible things in this play and they seem not to have the slightest effect on how we are asked to view him. Which is why, as I said, I wish the series editors had gotten a new introduction. Because I could use a little more help.
