Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Critical studies on the pastoral formula consistently mention the necessary characteristics of the swain and give little attention, if any, to the requisite nymph. This absence of prescriptives seems irrelevant as the shepherdess in countless pastorals remains universally written: sexual yet coy, beautiful yet attainable, secondary yet critical to the narrative, acted upon and disposable, she varies little from pastoral to pastoral. In the hands of Aphra Behn, however, the polite pretense of the shepherdess gives way to realism, producing a strikingly different kind of shepherdess, one that is far more complicated than those created by her classical predecessors. I argue in this essay that Behn deploys the figure of the Arcadian heroine as a means of suggesting new models of female social behavior. Behn’s heroines are often “motivated by a will for domination rather than lust, and by a wish for novelty and excitement.” Thus contrary to Renato Poggioli’s thinking that “the passivity of the pastoral heroine emphasizes again that her dominant traits must be the naïve candor and the charming immaturity of youth,” Behn’s nymphs are aggressive and self-centered. They pursue and are often defeated, yet ultimately they seek sexual conquest and personal gratification. They adopt the libertine practices typically associated with the swain, yet their existence is more than a mere role reversal. Through close readings of her pastoral poems, I illustrate that Behn’s heroines pose a threat to masculine identity and structures of power by challenging patriarchal assumptions about the nature of woman and female desire.