The Rover by Aphra Behn

First published: 1677 (Part I); 1681 (Part II)

First produced: Part I, 1677, Dorset Garden, London; Part II, 1681, Dorset Garden, London

Type of plot: Comedy of manners

Time of work: 1642-1660

Locale: Naples and Madrid

Principal Characters:

• Willmore the Rover, an Englishman
• Belvile, an English colonel
• Blunt, a country fool
• Don Pedro, the brother of Florinda and Hellena
• Florinda, the sister of Hellena and Don Pedro, in love with Belvile
• Hellena, the sister of Florinda and Don Pedro, in love with Willmore the Rover
• Don Antonio, a nobleman
• Angelica Bianca, a courtesan
• Lucetta, a prostitute
• Beaumond, the English ambassador’s nephew
• Nicholas Fetherfool, an English squire
• Ariadne, the daughter-in-law to the English ambassador
• La Nuche, a courtesan
• Shift, and
• Hunt, exiled cavaliers
• Don Carlo, a nobleman
• Petronella, a bawdy woman

The Play

Set in Naples during the annual carnival, Part I of The Rover begins with a conversation between two sisters. Hellena’s family plans for her to become a nun, but she is clearly more interested in men than in God. Her sister, Florinda, is in love with the English colonel Belvile, a cavalier, who saved her life during the Siege of Pamplona. Her brother, however, wants her to marry the wealthy Don Antonio, while her father wants her to marry the ancient Don Vincentio. Defying their brother, the two unhappy sisters, disguised, attend the carnival, where they encounter three Englishmen: Belvile, Willmore, and Blunt. Hellena is reunited with Belvile, and Willmore the Rover is immediately attracted to Hellena, who is disguised as a gypsy. Blunt, a foolish character who is paying for the other Englishmen’s trip, falls under the spell of Lucetta, who plans to steal his money.

Both Don Pedro and Don Antonio are attracted to the famous courtesan Angelica Bianca. While the two noblemen fight over her, Willmore seduces Angelica, who reluctantly falls in love with him. Willmore, however, quickly turns his attention back to Hellena, who insists on marriage before pleasure. At Lucetta’s house, Blunt is deceived and robbed before falling through a trapdoor into a sewer. After inadvertently disrupting Florinda and Belvile’s romantic plans, Willmore wounds Don Antonio outside Angelica’s house. Soldiers then seize Belvile, whom they mistake for Willmore. The wounded Don Antonio asks Belvile to fight Don Pedro in his place. The next morning, Belvile, disguised as Antonio, defeats Don Pedro and wins the hand of Florinda. Before the marriage can take place, however, Willmore reveals Belvile’s true identity, causing Don Pedro to flee with Florinda. Disguised as a man, Hellena pursues Willmore, while Angelica, angry at the Rover’s betrayal, seeks revenge.

Florinda escapes from her brother’s house but is almost raped by Blunt and then by her brother, neither of whom knows her real identity. Once Belvile and Florinda finally marry, Angelica threatens to shoot Willmore but is thwarted by Don Antonio. Realizing that Hellena is exceedingly wealthy, Willmore agrees to marry her.

Part II takes place in Madrid. Willmore and Beaumond are attracted to the courtesan La Nuche, who loves Willmore in spite of his poverty. Shift and Hunt, also exiled cavaliers, plan to marry two rich, but deformed, Mexican sisters. The sisters—one a giant, the other a dwarf—hope to be changed to normal proportions by a mountebank. Fetherfool and Blunt also hope to marry the women for their money. Ariadne, who is supposed to marry her cousin Beaumond, falls in love with Willmore, who disguises himself as the mountebank in hopes of swindling the two deformed sisters. Later that night, Willmore, La Nuche, Beaumond, and Ariadne meet in a garden, where the darkness causes great confusion. Not knowing each other’s identity, Willmore and Beaumond fight. Ariadne discovers Beaumond’s indifference toward her and continues her pursuit of Willmore despite his refusal to marry.

Meanwhile, in a darkened bedroom, Don Carlo and Fetherfool mistake each other for La Nuche. Hoping to escape Don Carlo’s anger, Fetherfool climbs out a window and is left naked in the street. Ariadne, fooled by Beaumond, is led to the mountebank’s home, where Fetherfool steals a pearl necklace from the Mexican giant while Blunt pursues the bawdy Petronella, who has stolen a casket of jewels from La Nuche. In the end, Shift and Hunt marry the Mexican giant and dwarf, Beaumond and Ariadne agree to marry, and Willmore seeks “Love and Gallantry” with La Nuche.

Dramatic Devices

The Rover plays contain many characteristics of Restoration drama. Like other playwrights, Behn presented engaging protagonists, scintillating dialogue, intrigue, and farce. Lucetta’s trickery, which leaves Blunt naked and filthy in Part I, and Fetherfool’s attempt to disguise himself as a clock in Part II, illustrate the kind of slapstick comedy that is as funny for a modern audience as it was for Behn’s theatergoers. To quicken the pace of her plays and to create a visually stunning performance, Behn took full advantage of movable scenery, which was an innovation in the late seventeenth century. Scenery, painted on large shutters, was quickly moved offstage to reveal new characters and a new location. Thus, in Part I, the action can move, for example, instantly from the street to Blunt’s apartment.

Behn also utilized the intimacy of the proscenium stage, which allowed the actors to perform only a few feet from the audience. Much of the plays’ exposition and comedy are contained within the asides that the characters share with the audience but conceal from one another.

Critical Context

The Rover plays are among the most widely read of Behn’s large body of literary works. Part I was tremendously successful during the seventeenth century and was frequently revived throughout the eighteenth century. Behn’s artistry becomes particularly apparent when her plays are viewed in comparison with their source, Thomas Killigrew’s long closet drama Thomas: Or, The Wanderer (wr. 1654, pb. 1664). Not only did Behn shorten Killigrew’s drama, which would never have been successful onstage, but she also changed its tone. Killigrew’s humor depends upon a vulgarity that is entirely absent from Behn’s plays. Behn eliminated Killigrew’s misogyny and transformed his female caricatures into complex, fully developed characters.

Equally important, Behn used this drama to explore ideas related to gender and culture that are found throughout her works. Depicting the way in which society inhibits and ultimately perverts desire, The Rover shares much with Behn’s poem “The Golden Age” (1684), her novel Oronooko: Or, The History of the Royal Slave (1688), and many of her other plays. The Rover also presents the virtues, however ambiguous, of cavaliers like Willmore, Belvile, and Beaumond, who remained loyal to the Stuart family during the Interregnum period. In this way, the plays belong to what Robert Markley has labeled Behn’s “Tory Comedies.” These plays, which also include The Roundheads: Or, The Good Old Cause (pr. 1681, pb. 1682) and The City Heiress: Or, Sir Timothy Treat-All (pr., pb. 1682), celebrate natural aristocracy and uninhibited sexuality while ridiculing the “Puritan ideology of self-denial.”

Ultimately, The Rover plays are difficult to characterize. They are both derivative and highly original. More important, they are wonderfully enjoyable comedies that never lose their ability to raise important and disturbing questions. For readers of Restoration drama, they remain as eclectic and delightful as their protagonists.

Sources for Further Study

Duffy, Maureen. The Passionate Shepherdess: Aphra Behn, 1640-1689. London: Jonathan Cape, 1977.

Gallagher, Catherine. “Who Was That Masked Woman? The Prostitute and the Playwright in the Comedies of Aphra Behn.” In Rereading Aphra Behn: History, Theory, and Criticism, edited by Heidi Hutner. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993.

Hutner, Heidi. “Revisioning the Female Body: Aphra Behn’s The Rover, Parts I and II.” In Rereading Aphra Behn: History, Theory, and Criticism, edited by Heidi Hutner. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993.

Link, Frederick M. Aphra Behn. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1968.

Markley, Robert. “‘Be Impudent, Be Saucy, Forward, Bold, Touzing, and Leud’: The Politics of Masculine Sexuality and Feminine Desire in Behn’s Tory Comedies.” In Cultural Readings of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century English Theatre, edited by J. Douglas Canfield and Deborah C. Payne. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995.

Todd, Janet. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1997.