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Aina Singh

Professor Natasha Vashisht

17th - 18th Century British Poetry and Drama

29 September 2014

The Rover as a Restoration Comedy

Restoration comedy, like most other literary genres, was deeply influenced by its

historical context. With the abolition of the monarchy, England entered a period of puritan

repression call the Interregnum ("between reigns") or Commonwealth led by Oliver Cromwell.

Cromwell's rule was fraught with problems between himself and Parliament. Tensions arose

over the nature of the constitution and the issue of supremacy, control of the armed forces,

and debates over religious tolerance. In 1653 Cromwell dissolved Parliament, appointing

himself Lord Protector. After Cromwell's death in 1658, and the failure of his son Richard's

short-lived Protectorate, the army invited Charles I's son, Charles, to become King. The

restoration of the exiled Charles II to the throne of England in 1660 put an end to the

claustrophobic Cromwellian regime and its preoccupation with hard work, at the expense of

leisure. This gave rise to an atmosphere of euphoria and a deliberate reversal of the Puritan

ethic. People were determined to enjoy their newly regained luxury and there was a general

spirit of Carpe Diem. King Charles II brought with him a sense of the fun and frivolity of the

French court where he had resided in exile. The king had a hedonistic character - he had

numerous mistresses and illegitimate children, and loved racing and gambling - which

constituted a considerable influence on the art and literature of the time. When Charles II was
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restored to the throne in 1660, the theatre companies were reopened and cast aside the

Puritan restrictions of the previous eighteen years. The theatre of the time reflected the

political and social changes brought by King Charles II's return to English soil. King Charles II’s

most notorious mistress was Nell Gwynne, who was also one of the most famous actresses of

the day. The unsentimental or "hard" comedies of John Dryden, William Wycherley, and George

Etherege reflected the atmosphere at Court, and celebrated with frankness an aristocratic

macho lifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest. Thus, sexual promiscuity,

systematic frivolity and unabashed materialism were evident characteristics of the restoration

period. However, viewing the age only in terms of its Epicureanism would amount to having a

rather narrow perspective of the times, as Bonamy Dobree points out in the essay ‘Restoration

Comedy’. Great emphasis was, in fact, laid on taste and cultural refinement, with men from all

sections of society striving to prove themselves as ‘wits’. All these features are reflected in the

writings of the period, especially Restoration comedy plays, with Aphra Behn’s The Rover both

conforming to the genre, as well as cleverly subverting it.

Socio- economic changes in England led to the rise of writing as a profession, with

more and more writers becoming free agents, who wrote for the market. This greatly

influenced their writings as the text now became a commodity, subject to criticism by the

consumers, and vulnerable to being shaped by the same. In such a milieu, Aphra Behn was not

only one of the first professional writers, but the earliest woman writer. Her very act of writing

for money was a subversion of societal norms and expectations. In fact, it coincided with the

introduction of women actors into English drama. Behn was thus a subversive entity herself, a

woman operating in the world of literature, the domain of men. She exercised her wit- and
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made her women characters do the same- in a time when the predominant mindset decreed

that women were sentimental creatures, “antagonistic to intellect”. (Introduction to Worldview

edition of The Rover) There was a growing tendency, in theatre, to serve the interests of the

audience slavishly by playing to their commodity fetish. The audience mostly consisted of

market-oriented, pleasure-seeking individuals who watched plays not for contemplation, but

merely for leisure. Behn, in many ways, played the same role as other playwrights, allowing the

watcher to act as voyeur and serving him with a heady mix of eroticism, sex antagonism and

materialism. However, what sets Behn apart is that she made sure her plays offered a critique

of her times even while conforming to them. The fact that critics sometimes question Behn’s

positionality while mocking the belittling of women, when she herself was ‘putting herself out

there’ as a published author, only serves to throw more light on the double standard accorded

to the judgement of women since times immemorial. As Shyamala A. Narayan says in ‘The

Rover as a Restoration Comedy’, “The Restoration aristocrats prided themselves on their bawdy

wit. The male playwrights were applauded for it, but Aphra Behn, being a woman, was vilified

for it.” It is a function of the same society that refused to pay equal wages to women actresses

and criticised the same when they were forced to become mistresses for fear of poverty.

The Rover submits to many Restoration comic tropes but also flouts them, primarily

by setting the text within the carnival- a space characterised by licensed licentiousness and

shortlivedness. This heightens the spirit of Carpe Diem- Seize the Day- and the flouting of rules

in true Restoration style, but also serves to problematize behaviours as all acts can be explained

away as part of the masquerade. In Florinda and Helena we have the stock figures of the

aristocratic virgin and the witty heroine, respectively. Florinda is afraid to outrightly rebel
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against her brother and has to resort to entering the carnival to achieve her desires. She is

aware of the value of her virginity and protects it to the very end to present to her beloved in

marriage. The image of the youthful dame getting repulsed by a rich decrepit old man (conjured

by Florinda’s refusal to marry either of the suitors approved by her brother) is also rather

typical of the comedies of the time. The subversive aspect of Florinda’s behaviour is that she

uses wanton means to achieve her ends. Florinda in the garden in a state of undress with a box

of jewels in her hands is her moment of empowerment where she not only asserts that she will

settle for no less than what she is ‘worth’ but also that her sexual desire, contrary to her

brother’s expectations, is a force to be reckoned with.

Helena’s wit is a significant tool for setting up the battle of the wits. With her

intellect, she becomes the sole match for Willmore, who despite his Casanova nature is drawn

repeatedly to her. Her wilful pursuit of Willmore becomes the subversive element in this case,

with her admiration for his inconstancy becoming a threat to the patriarchal notion of women

as sentimental beings. Of the Rover women, Helena fares best because, although she is lustful,

her power is based not in her sexuality but in her wit for adventure. It is true that both women-

like many other characters in the play- return to the folds of society towards the end by seeking

legitimacy from the institution of marriage. Women are almost always at the receiving end in

Behn’s plays, especially since Restoration literature sought to be realistic. However, the fact

that her women put up a mighty fight against restrictive norms mirrors her own sense of

agency. Angellica Bianca’s romantic longings and her act of gifting her sexuality as well as

money to Wilmore not only disrupts the usual transaction in the space of the courtesan’s

house, but also acts as a facilitator of the general vocabulary of commerce used in the play.
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Also many Restoration Comedies include a character “disappointed in love or fortune” who was

written in especially to provide the extreme passion of despair (Angelica Bianca would be the

model for this in The Rover). The rich prostitute Angelica Bianca, without chastity and modesty,

thinks it is her privilege to seduce whomsoever she fancies. Behn’s radical awareness of the

double standards of morality, by which men and women are enjoined to live, sounds most

clearly in The Rover when Angelica points out that men effectively prostitute themselves in the

marriage market when they marry a woman for her money and not for love. She tries to claim

equal status with the men by using her sex as her power. Sadly, all her courtesan’s wealth

cannot save Angelica from the bondage of “submissive passion” in which her true love for

Willmore snares her.

Willmore, after whom the play is named, is the quintessential philandering rake,

much like the model set by Charles II himself, imitated enthusiastically in many Restoration

texts. However, Willmore is an alienated figure- an outsider, not tied down by any social roles-

not because of deep cynicism (like other Restoration heroes) or an active disregard for norms,

but simply because of his free spirit and epicurean tendency. It can even be said that his

fickleness arises from his natural attraction to charming women. Readers in more recent times

may be more aware of the inappropriateness of Willmore’s behaviour, with our awareness of

the feminist movement against the double standards that society uses to judge women. Yet, in

order for the play to succeed, the audience must enjoy Willmore. We do not need to approve of

him; in fact a critique of his licentiousness is built into the structure of the play as his chaotic

sensuality almost destroys the happiness of the other characters, and does destroy Angelica.

Antonio, for example, is a scheming, dishonourable two-timer who marries for money, betrays
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Florinda the day before her wedding and inveigles Belvile to fight his duel for him. By contrast,

Willmore is neither calculating nor corrupt. He is naive. He assumes that everyone is motivated

by the same indomitable, sensual Will as himself. His evil is more a blind spot than active

malice. Willmore lives completely in the present tense. This frees him from the dominant

motivations of greed and politics which Behn loathes in social relations. Willmore tells Don

Pedro, “A Woman’s Honour is not worth guarding when she has a Mind to part with it”. By

accepting Hellena at face value without her fortune and despite her warnings of intended

inconstancy, Willmore roves outside the conventional Restoration fears of cuckoldry and

material poverty. It is this spontaneity and honesty of spirit that Aphra Behn loved in him and

which the audience must grasp at the same time that they see his shameful, dangerous sexism

is unacceptable. The two rovers, Willmore and Hellena, share the same propensities; both are

frank about their temperaments. Hellena’s attitude to female sexuality is as natural as that of

Willmore. She has a natural urge to have a man who she likes. In fact she appropriates

masculine discourse in her attempt to escape the nunnery. Willmore is undoubtedly the rakish

hero, a Cavalier and flirts with women without any qualms of conscience, but it is Hellena who

seems to be the real rover in the play. Behn wants to crown her with success in her revolt

against the father’s decision to confine her to a life of nunnery.

Crisis in the aristocracy- of which Pedro’s character is a function- is also turned on

its head by his ultimate acceptance of Florinda and Belvile’s marriage. At this point, it may be

argued that the Belvile-Florinda romance itself, though very generic and typical of comedies, is

problematized through the repeated attempts at the rape of Florinda, which Belvile reacts to a

little too mildly, considering he has been set up the ‘knight in shining armour’. Belvile’s friends
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act as typical rakes by mocking his love for Florinda and claiming that women could only be

used for sexual needs. Blunt initially seems to be purely a stock figure- one often found in

Restoration comedies. He is an English country gentleman, rich but foolish, a ‘country

bumpkin’, fooled by a wily prostitute. His attempts at projecting himself as a wit evoke much

laughter from the reader. However the same character later become a mouthpiece for violent,

horrific misogyny and his speech directed at Florinda where he threatens to rape her, beat her

up and hang her from a window, disrupts the harmless bumpkin stereotype.

It cannot be refuted that the play ends in rather typical ways, with the prostitute

returning to her trade, and the virgins being awarded with marriage- a proverbial ‘happy

ending’. However, all men, women and institutions pass through the marketplace and are

valued, just as the text, and even its author, is. Through the carnival, Behn gives space to her

characters to explore their true natures, albeit behind masks. To quote Anand Prakash in his

essay, ‘“Designing” Women Socially and Market- Wise: Glimpses of the Restoration Strategy in

The Rover’, “ … Behn is not attempting in The Rover a typical Restoration comedy with fops and

wits in the fray out to merely titillate us but a representation that focuses upon serious issues

of freedom, identity and physicality, particularly with respect to women.”


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References/ Works Cited

Behn, Aphra. The Rover, Ed. Kanwar, Prakash, Worldview Publications, Delhi (2000),

pp.3-107. Print

Carlson, Susan. Carnivalising and Cannibalising, Theatre Journal, Vol. 47, No. 4,

Eighteenth-Century Representations, Dec., 1995, pp.517-539. The Johns Hopkins University

Press, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3208990. Accessed: 21/03/2014 03:39. Electronic

Diamond, Elin. Gestus and Signature in Aphra Behn’s The Rover, ELH, Vol. 56, No. 3,

Autumn, 1989, pp. 519-541. The Johns Hopkins University, Stable URL:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2873196. Accessed: 21/03/2014 03:42. Electronic

Dobree, Bonamy, Restoration Comedy, 1660-1720, Oxford University Press, 1924.

Print

Narayan, Shyamala A., The Rover as a Restoration Comedy, Ed. Kanwar, Prakash,

Worldview Publications, Delhi, 2000, pp.111-126. Print

Prakash, Anand, “Designing” Women Socially and Market- Wise: Glimpses of the

Restoration Strategy in The Rover, Ed. Kanwar, Prakash, Worldview Publications, Delhi, 2000,

pp.162-177. Print

Prakash and Kanwar, Introduction to Worldview edition of The Rover, Ed. Kanwar,

Prakash, Worldview Publications, Delhi, 2000, pp.ix-xxx. Print

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