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    Oroonoko
    Oroonoko
    Oroonoko
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    Oroonoko

    By Aphra Behn

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    Coromantin grandson of an African king Prince Oroonoko falls in love with Imoinda, the daughter of that king's top general. The king, too, falls in love with Imoinda. He gives Imoinda the sacred veil, thus commanding her to become one of his wives, even though she was already married to Oroonoko. After Imoinda unwillingly spends time in the king's harem, Oroonoko plans a tryst with the help of the sympathetic Onahal and Aboan.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInteractive Media
    Release dateJul 24, 2016
    ISBN9781911495581
    Author

    Aphra Behn

    Born in the first few decades of the seventeenth century, Aphra Behn is one of early literature’s best-known female writers. Behn had the lucky distinction of being able to support herself strictly by her “pen,” something unheard of for women of her time. Throughout her long career, she wrote in various forms—poetry, plays, prose—and is known as a member of the ‘fair triumvirate of wit’ alongside fellow scribes Eliza Haywood and Delarivier Manley. Although little is known about her early life, Behn’s father held a post as lieutenant governor of Surinam, and Behn’s experiences during her stay most likely formed the basis for her most famous work, Oroonoko. Behn was also a popular dramatist in her time, penning critical successes like The Rover and The Feigned Courtesans. Her literary exploits aside, Behn is also known to have acted as a political spy for King Charles II of England during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Behn died in 1689, and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

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    Reviews for Oroonoko

    3/5

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    • 3/5
      Aphra Behn is herself as interesting as the story. A professional writer, is this is reputed to be the first ever novel, having turned writer after release from a debtors prison but also a spy, anti-slavery and suspected of taken a black lover, which as a white woman would have been strictly taboo back then. Behn's literary background is as a playwright and you can certainly feel this in her writing as there is a certain rhythm throughout although the strange use of punctuation, in particular apostrophes, initially feels rather odd. It is interesting that Oroonoko is described as a person ,with handsome features, rather than a pure commodity as at the time when this book was written 'Blacks' would have been seen as lesser lifeforms but then there seems little distinction between the imported slaves and the local Indians tribes. The book can certainly be seen as anti-slavery because it is the Oroonoko who is the one having all the noble characteristics, loving, honest, brave, lenient etc. He is tricked into slavery rather than captured in battle and even his home country is depicted as having a structural society rather than just a group of Blacks running around with spears killing each other where even battles are pre-arranged.In contrast the few Whites come out with any credit. They are painted as duplicitous, cruel and cowards. However it is also a dig at socity as a whole because very few people of authority, black or white, come out totally unscathed, even the King back in Orookono's home is also seen as a liar and impotent. But it also it can be read as a love story, Oroonoko loses his position in his homeland as a direct consequance of his love for Imoinda, also described in very flattering terms, and it is this love that eventually leads to his death.On the whole the story is showing its age but is still worth a read
    • 4/5
      Aphra Behn's enchanting story of movements, encounters and the uneasy existence of parallel worlds may not be "the first novel in English", but it is haunting and magisterial. The mythic world, the dreamy nobility and nightmarish cruelty of Oroonoko's own, almost entirely fictitious, Africa; the grim politics of put-money-in-thy-purse Europe, ruining everything it touches, and the ignoble Europeans, creatures of vicious cunning; the clear-lit paradise of Suriname, full of doomed children, the natives, and novel little creatures of all sorts that make as good eating for real as the people and their land will in metaphor (meatphor).

      Things get out of control when those worlds start bleeding into each other--Oroonoko and Imoinda too noble for plantation slavery, the Indians too naive to resist it, the Europeans too venal to do honour to their religious ideals, the remnants of their ancient, noble, savage selves. And the stigmata thereof appear everywhere--on the self-mutilation of the native generals, on the piece of flesh that Oroonoko cuts from his throat and flings at the slavers, but also on the beautiful scarification that his people inflict on one another, that stark and redblooded art. In the deadly vengeance the Europeans take, certainly, but also in the ambiguous fecundity of Imoinda's body, the pregnancy that turns slavery into war and self-destruction, the nobility of cutting off your nose to spite your face. The promise of the future and birth and growth that all these men fight over, the fear of losing possession of it and in it losing oneself. The eternal last word of negative capability, of self-hurt, and the sad nobility therein. We destroy ourselves to show the world who we are.

      Certainly not an anti-slavery story as such, then, but an anti-degradation story, anti-besmirching of that delicate inner rightness we call human dignity. Economic systems and political systems have a logic, and it will win out over truth and beauty. But Prince Oroonoko doesn't need to die to prove it any more than Charles I did. It's a story that exalts the aristocrat, but it exalts him as amore fully developed human. And as such, of course, it's unavoidably an anti-slavery story too, whatever Behn would have said.

    • 3/5
      Aphra Behn's Oroonoko is theorized in style and format to possibly be one of the first novels in English, connecting the worlds of Europe, Africa, and America in a tale that is common in plot but uncommon in character. Written by the so-called "bad girl" of her time, Behn's novel explores firs the foreign world of Coramantien and its royalty. The title character of the Royal Prince then finds himself with soldiers and war captains with the natives of Surinam, and then with its colonists. Separated in different social classes, the main character, who is black, is deemed royalty in one world, and slave in another. This is just one the main dualities presented in this text. Race, social class, gender, age, life and death all play a part in this manuscript. The interesting story makes definite commentary on the role of women and of religion as shown by the contrast in cultures. Oroonoko, while not an immediately likable character in his stoicism, is given the effect of reader appeal through the other characters in the text. His love interest, Imoinda, shines. Dismissed during its publishing as vulgar and sensational because of the author's "warm" attitude toward sexuality and violence, Oroonoko is now placed among the treasures of British literature. Its value as a story, a novel, and a commentary of social life and slavery is highly valuable.Oroonoko is one of the only known novels written by this author, who has yet to be fully discovered and publicized. For a long while, Behn was negatively criticized for both her work and her social life outside of her writing. She was also notorious for her torrid relationships with other well-known people of her time, and for working a provocative job as a spy. She changed the definition of feminine in presenting works where women are objects subjugated to male carnal desire, and punished for going outside this subjugated sphere. She champions the female as a deliberately sexual being who is punished for being so. Other works of hers include a large work of poetry that is slowly finding its way into mainstream literature anthologies. Her contributions to both prose and poetry have contributed greatly to feminism and to literature.
    • 4/5
      A story of slavery. written in 1688, this 17th century literature is remarkable in its telling of a tale of Oroonoko and Imoinda, their love, the grandfather king who put his own lust above his grandson and heir to his own detriment, the tribe and to Oroonoko and Imoinda. Oroonoko comes to distrust the God of Christians because the Christian is never honest but he continues to try and be patient. He finally can stand things no longer and chooses freedom to his own destruction at the hands of his Christian captives.
    • 4/5
      Nobility and intelligence are no match for the white man's perfidy.
    • 1/5
      This book was an extremely difficult read; prose in its most jawbreaking style. Thanks goodness it was short, because what should have been a single afternoon's read was instead stretched out over eight uch-I-can't-stand-this-let-me-read-something-else days. Had it been a regular-size novel, I'd still be reading it until kingdom come. I found the ending repugnant, horrific, and morally disgusting, and I'm glad I could move on quickly to the post-1700 books on the "1,001 books to read" list.
    • 4/5
      This is a very moving short story about the horrors of slavery. Aphra Behn is one of the first major female English writers and her text is very easy to read and understand. We see Oroonoko as a real human person instead of just being an ordinary slave. He is an African prince who heroically refuses to allow his unborn child be born into slavery. I recommend this novel as it is considered the first novel to be written in English and is one that should not be forgotten.
    • 2/5
      "Shall we render Obedience to such a degenerate Race...Will you, I say, suffer the Lash from such Hands?",, February 11, 2015This review is from: Oroonoko (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)As one of the earliest novels in English, it's interesting to see what fiction was like in the 1680s.This is the tale of Prince Orinooko, only surviving grandson of the rather despotic 100-year old king of 'Coramantien' in Africa. He falls in love with local beauty, Imoinda, but she has caught the eye of his grandfather too, who makes her part of his harem. The first part of the novel, the description of the royal court and related adventures was quite interesting (a rather 'English' imagining of the place, I think, with its French tutor and European courtly ideals: "refined Notions of true Honour, that absolute Generosity, and that Softness, that was capable of the highest Passions of Love and Gallantry.")Then the two lovers are separately sold into slavery and here one must suspend disbelief, as our hero's new owner in Surinam, aware of his slave's qualities, "began to conceive so vast an Esteem for him, that he ever after lov'd him as his dearest Brother" and "he was received more like a Governor than a Slave." However, that doesn't mean life is going to be easy, as Orinooko comes to the belief that "there was no Faith in the White men or the Gods they ador'd...a Man ought to be eternally on his Guard and never to eat or drink with Christians, without his Weapon."How Orinooko's observations cause him to act forms the concluding part of the tale.Despite being 330 years old, this is perfectly readable, though I have to say it didn't exactly 'grab' me as a read .However from an historical point of view, it's of interest both to see the development of the novel, and to observe how the Black race was portrayed as against Victorian opponents to slavery like Harriet Beecher Stowe. While the latter gains her readers' sympathies by focussing on Uncle Tom's Christianity and long-suffering, and creates a rather child-like character, Aphra Behn shows a man who repudiates all Christianity stands for and who is 'all man' in his fearlessness - "a Prince, whose Valour and Magnanimity deserved the Empire of the World" and "Who struck an Awe and Reverence."
    • 3/5
      Troubling and gory, Oroonoko's tragic fate will haunt the modern reader in this hallmark of early writing from a female author.
    • 5/5
      Oroonoko by Aphra Behn is the 17th century story of an African Prince and his beloved, both sold into slavery separately, then reunited on a slave plantation in Surinam. The story is a narration by a Englishwoman colonist, and asserted to be true. The story of love, conflict with tribal traditions, enslavement, reunion, and rebellion is a compelling narrative, despite the 17th century prose style.
    • 3/5
      A telling portrayal of European fetishization and exoticization of Africa and the East, the melodrama definitely dates this work. Still, it's interesting the context of Behn's life and times, and is a worthy read for the sake of historicity.
    • 4/5
      Read in preparation for an Open University course. This was fairly short and the language was easier to understand than I had anticipated. Europeans don't come out of this very well.
    • 3/5
      A telling portrayal of European fetishization and exoticization of Africa and the East, the melodrama definitely dates this work. Still, it's interesting the context of Behn's life and times, and is a worthy read for the sake of historicity.
    • 3/5
      “Oroonoko” by Aphra Behn, is an interesting case mixing two oppressed types of people. The narrative is told by a woman with some social standing; however, women of this time are not included in any decision making or influential places of power. They are considered property of their husbands or caretakers, even if the family is well off and the female may be allowed to travel with companions. The narrator often states that she tries to help the main character and sympathizes with his plight, but has no chance of saving him from the punishments placed down upon him. She also is sent away whenever there may be trouble. Oroonoko is also oppressed. He is a black male, which regardless of his royal status, is still considered a lesser being during this time period. The story may indulge in his heroic activities, his beauty, his strength as a leader and a fighter, but it also does not seem to state that he being enslaved is an offence against nature. In fact, even from the words of Oroonoko, he seems to be content with his situation until he finds out that Imoinda is pregnant. He is never happy being a slave, but he does not set up an opposition against it outright until the thought of his children in slavery changes him. Polk points out that at first he was not in favor of relating to Oroonoko because of the narrators description of him being a black male that had many white features. Polk found that to be distasteful because it encourages the distinguishing of a lighter black man being more attractive and having a higher status in life than a darker black man. However, after reading an article, Polk begins to look at Oroonoko differently. He begins to see Oroonoko through stages of identity development. The first stage shows that Oroonoko is influenced by the wit of white men. He sees them as being more intelligent and more powerful than a black man. He perpetuates the oppression of black men by fancying the intellect of a white man more than a black man. This is shown by his friendships with the man that captures him into slavery and the Frenchman that he defeats in battle. The next step in the development of his identity is brought about by a huge change in his life. This change is the promise of a child. When Oroonoko thinks that his child will be born into slavery, a change in his thoughts occurs and he no longer thinks as kindly towards his oppressors. The next stage comes when Oroonoko embraces being a black man. He shows this by his speeches to first encourage the other slaves to rise in rebellion and then in his fighting for freedom. Even through his speech when the other slaves abandon him and he calls them names, he is still accepting himself as a black individual. He dies before moving into the next step of his development. However, Polk finds that the smoking of a pipe even as he is being cut into pieces symbolizes a rise above those that torment him. He supplies that smoking the pipe is hiding a smile or smirk.

    Book preview

    Oroonoko - Aphra Behn

    Aphra Behn

    Aphra Behn

    Oroonoko

    New Edition

    LONDON ∙ NEW YORK ∙ TORONTO ∙ SAO PAULO ∙ MOSCOW

    PARIS ∙ MADRID ∙ BERLIN ∙ ROME ∙ MEXICO CITY ∙ MUMBAI ∙ SEOUL ∙ DOHA

    TOKYO ∙ SYDNEY ∙ CAPE TOWN ∙ AUCKLAND ∙ BEIJING

    New Edition

    Published by Sovereign Classic

    sales@sovereignclassic.net

    www.sovereignclassic.net

    This Edition

    First published in 2016

    Copyright © 2016 Sovereign

    All Rights Reserved.

    ISBN: 9781911495581

    Contents

    INTRODUCTION

    EPISTLE DEDICATORY.

    OROONOKO

    INTRODUCTION

    The tale of Oroonoko, the Royal Slave is indisputedly Mrs. Behn’s masterpiece in prose. Its originality and power have singled it out for a permanence and popularity none of her other works attained. It is vivid, realistic, pregnant with pathos, beauty, and truth, and not only has it so impressed itself upon the readers of more than two centuries, but further, it surely struck a new note in English literature and one which was re-echoed far and wide. It has been said that ‘Oroonoko is the first emancipation novel’, and there is no little acumen in this remark. Certainly we may absolve Mrs. Behn from having directly written with a purpose such as animated Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin; but none the less her sympathy with the oppressed blacks, her deep emotions of pity for outraged humanity, her anger at the cruelties of the slave-driver aye ready with knout or knife, are manifest in every line. Beyond the intense interest of the pure narrative we have passages of a rhythm that is lyric, exquisitely descriptive of the picturesque tropical scenery and exotic vegetations, fragrant and luxuriant; there are intimate accounts of adventuring and primitive life; there are personal touches which lend a colour only personal touches can, as Aphara tells her prose-epic of her Superman, Cæsar the slave, Oroonoko the prince.

    It is not difficult to trace the influence of Oroonoko. We can see it in many an English author; in Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, in Chateaubriand. Her idyllic romance has inspired writers who perhaps but dimly remember even her name and her genius.

    It was often reprinted separately from the rest. There is a little 12mo Oroonoko, ‘the ninth edition corrected’, published at Doncaster, 9, ‘for C. Plummer’, which is rarely seen save in a torn and well-thumbed state.1

    In 7 the sentimental and highly proper Mrs. Elizabeth Griffith included Oroonoko in her three volume Collection of Novels selected and revised. Oroonoko, ‘written originally by Mrs. Behn and revised by Mrs. Griffith’2, was also issued separately, ‘price sixpence’3, in 0, frontispieced by a very crude picture of a black-a-moor about to attack a tiger.

    As early as 9 we find Lebens und Liebes-Geschichte des Königlichen Sclaven Oroonoko in West-Indien, a German translation published at Hamburg, with a portrait of ‘Die Sinnreiche Engelländerin Mrs. Afra Behn.’

    In 5 Oroonoko was ‘traduit de l’Anglois de Madame Behn,’ with the motto from Lucan ‘Quo fata trahunt virtus secura sequetur.’ There is a rhymed dedication ‘A Madame La M. P. D’l . . .’ (35 lines), signed D. L.****, i.e., Pierre-Antoine de la Place, a fecund but mediocre writer of the eighteenth century (7-93), who also translated, Venice Preserv’d, The Fatal Marriage, Tom Jones, and other English masterpieces. There is another edition of de la Place’s version with fine plates engraved by C. Baron after Marillier, Londres, 9.

    In 6 Southerne’s great tragedy, founded upon Mrs. Behn’s novel, was produced at Drury Lane. Oroonoko was created by Verbruggen, Powell acted Aboan, and the beautiful Mrs. Rogers Imoinda. The play has some magnificent passages, and long kept the stage. Southerne had further added an excellent comic underplot, full of humour and the truest vis comica. It is perhaps worth noting that the intrigues of Lucy and Charlotte and the Lackitt ménage were dished up as a short slap-bang farce by themselves with, curiously enough, two or three scenes in extenso from Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas (iii, iii, and v, ii). This hotch potch entitled The Sexes Mis-match’d; or, A New Way to get a Husband is printed in The Strollers’ Pacquet open’d. (12mo, 1.) On 1 December, 9, there was brought out at Drury Lane a most insipid alteration of Oroonoko by Dr. Hawkesworth, who omitted all Southerne’s lighter fare and inserted serious nonsense of his own. Garrick was the Oroonoko and Mrs. Cibber Imoinda. Although Hawkesworth’s version was not tolerated, the underplot was none the less pruned in later productions to such an extent that it perforce lost nearly all its pristine wit and fun. There is another adaption of Southerne: ‘Oroonoko altered from the original play . . . to which the editor has added near six hundred lines in place of the comic scenes, together with an addition of two new characters, intended for one of the theatres.’ (8vo, 0.) The two new characters are Maria, sister to the Lieutenant-Governor and contracted to Blandford, and one Heartwell; both thoroughly tiresome individuals. In the same year Frank Gentleman, a provincial actor, produced his idea of Oroonoko ‘as it was acted at Edinburgh.’ (12mo, 0.) There is yet a fourth bastard: The Prince of Angola, by one J. Ferriar, ‘a tragedy altered from the play of Oroonoko and adapted to the circumstances of the present times.’4 (Manchester, 8.) It must be confessed that all this tinkering with an original, which does not require from any point of view the slightest alteration or omission, is most uncalled for, crude, and unsuccessful.

    In 8 William Walker, a lad nineteen years old, the son of a wealthy Barbadoes planter, wrote in three weeks a tragedy entitled Victorious Love (4to, 8), which is confessedly a close imitation of Southerne’s theme. It was produced at Drury Lane in June, 8, with the author himself as Dafila, a youth, and young Mrs. Cross as the heroine Zaraida, ‘an European Shipwrack’d an Infant at Gualata’. Possibly Verbruggen acted Barnagasso, the captive king who corresponds to Oroonoko. The scene is laid in the Banze, or Palace of Tombut, whose Emperor, Jamoan, is Barnagasso’s rival in Zaraida’s love. There is a villain, Zanhaga, who after various more or less successful iniquities, poisons the Emperor; whereon hero and heroine are happily united. Victorious Love is far from being entirely a bad play; it is, however, very reminiscent of the heroic tragedies of two decades before.

    Southerne’s Oroonoko was (with some alterations) translated into German. This version is prose and probably either the work of W. H. von Dalberg or von Eisenthal. It has little merit, but proved popular and was printed in 9 with a somewhat grotesque frontispiece of Oroonoko and Imoinda, both of whom are black ‘as pitch or as the cole’.

    1 There were also many chap-books on similar themes which enjoyed no small popularity, e.g., The Royal African; or, The Memoirs of the Young Prince of Annamaboe (circa 0), the romantic narrative of a negro prince, who became a slave in Barbadoes, from whence he was redeemed and brought to England.

    2 Mis-spelt ‘Griffiths’ in the 0 edition.

    3 There was ‘a superior edition on a fine wove paper, Hot-pressed, with Proof Impressions of the Plates. Price only Nine-pence.’

    4 The Agitation for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

    EPISTLE DEDICATORY.

    TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD MAITLAND.

    The Epistle Dedicatory was printed as an Appendix; see Note.

    My Lord,

    Since the World is grown so Nice and Critical upon Dedications, and will Needs be Judging the Book by the Wit of the Patron; we ought, with a great deal of Circumspection to chuse a Person against whom there can be no Exception; and whose Wit and Worth truly Merits all that one is capable of saying upon that Occasion.

    The most part of Dedications are charg’d with Flattery; and if the World knows a Man has some Vices, they will not allow one to speak of his Virtues. This, My Lord, is for want of thinking Rightly; if Men wou’d consider with Reason, they wou’d have another sort of Opinion, and Esteem of Dedications; and wou’d believe almost every Great Man has enough to make him Worthy of all that can be said of him there. My Lord, a Picture-drawer, when he intends to make a good Picture, essays the Face many Ways, and in many Lights, before he begins; that he may chuse from the several turns of it, which is most Agreeable and gives it the best Grace; and if there be a Scar, an ungrateful Mole, or any little Defect, they leave it out; and yet make the Picture extreamly like: But he who has the good Fortune to draw a Face that is exactly Charming in all its Parts and Features, what Colours or Agreements can be added to make it Finer? All that he can give is but its due; and Glories in a Piece whose Original alone gives it its Perfection. An ill Hand may diminish, but a good Hand cannot augment its Beauty. A Poet is a Painter in his way; he draws to the Life, but in another kind; we draw the Nobler part, the Soul and Mind; the Pictures of the Pen shall out-last those of the Pencil, and even Worlds themselves. ’Tis a short Chronicle of those Lives that possibly wou’d be forgotten by other Historians, or lye neglected there, however deserving an immortal Fame; for Men of eminent Parts are as Exemplary as even Monarchs themselves; and Virtue is a noble Lesson to be learn’d, and ’tis by Comparison we can Judge and Chuse. ’Tis by such illustrious Presidents as your Lordship the World can be Better’d and

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