Aphra Behn Stages the Social Scene in the Restoration Theatre By ...

LADY KNOWELL. Oh Faugh Mr Fancy what have you said. Mother tongue ! Can anything that’s great or moving be express’d in filthy English - observe but divine Homer in the Grecian language…Ah, how it sounds ! Which English dwindles into the most grating stuff : - then the swift-foot Achilles made reply, - oh faugh ! (vol. 6, 11)

Behn was reading and taking part in current theological and philosophical debate, as well as contributing to the literary scene. Peter Holland has shown that plays were bought to be read by a wide range of people including, for instance, Newton and Locke, but that they were considered of little worth and were not often included in the inventories of owners’ libraries.²¹ This would explain the apologia at the beginning of the epistle, which continues as an underlying theme. There is also an underlying ironical tone to the epistle, a characteristic of much Restoration writing, which again implies a deeper shared experience and basis of understanding between the author and her readers. Booth makes the point that what he terms stable irony needs intention on the part of the author; this seems to be true of Behn and it may provide a clue to understanding how she meant her plays to be received.²²

One can infer that she belonged to the educated middle class, and that her upbringing was similar to a more or less typical member of her audi-ence and potential reader of her epistle. However, one has to look elsewhere to try to see how such people were influenced by the changes brought about by the Restoration, and all that implied in the psychological and sociological changes it caused to their lives, their habits of thought, and behaviour. Intimations of some of the effects on different strata of society can be seen if the biographies of those close to events like Newcastle or Fairfax are compared with those only affected indirectly, such as in the diary of Ralph Josselyn or in the account of life in Myddle. However, there is little firsthand evidence of the affects on the lives of the educated middle class, on the fringes of events, where Behn appears to have belonged.²³

Fortunately, Pepys, also on the fringes as an employee of his nobler cousin, decided to keep his diary.