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journal contribution
posted on 2009-12-23, 16:03 authored by W.J. OvertonThe verse epistle is a key eighteenth-century form that developed in the Renaissance but
gained critical mass only during the Restoration. Despite increasing scholarly attention to
the work of Aphra Behn, including her poetry, her verse epistles remain relatively little
discussed, and the role she played in establishing the form has not been recognized. Once
Behn’s contributions to the form are identified, their importance in her work, as measured
both by their number and their quality, becomes clear, especially when compared with the
work of other writers of her period. She produced examples both of the Horatian familiar
epistle, and, in “Oenone to Paris”, a striking rewriting of an Ovidian heroic epistle, along
with amatory epistles, satirical epistles, and one complimentary epistle. Not only are her
verse epistles important in their own right, but they influenced other writers, male and
female. They are particularly distinctive for the turn she gave, as a woman writer, to a form
previously practised chiefly by men.
History
School
- The Arts, English and Drama
Department
- English and Drama
Citation
OVERTON, B., 2009. Aphra Behn and the verse epistle. Women's Writing, 16 (3), pp. 369-391.Publisher
© Routledge (Taylor & Francis)Version
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publication date
2009Notes
This is an electronic version of an article that was accepted for publication in the journal, Women's Writing [© Routledge] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09699080903161973ISSN
0969-9082;1747-5848Publisher version
Language
- en