Aphra Behn's The Rover or The Banished Cavaliers

Stage History:

• Performed March 1677 in London with King Charles II in attendance

• 1681: The Rover, Part II

• 1790: Kemble produces it as Love in Many Masks

• 1986: John Barton at the RSC combines Behn's text with text from Killigrew's Thomaso, or the Wanderer (1654)
  

A.

1. What’s odd about the prologue?

2. What’s the conflict in the beginning of the play?

3. What reasons does Hellena give for defending her sister’s marriage choice? (1.1.110/341; 1.1.145/342; 1.1.130/342)

4. What’s Blunt’s initial thought on women? (1.2.50/343)

5. How does Willmore’s name describe his character? (1.2.90-100/343; 1.2.325)

6. Why is the play’s setting—Carnival, Naples—important for the characters’ interactions?

7. What do you anticipate will be Hellena’s role in the play?

B.

1. What is the function of the carnival for the male figures? (2.1.1-3; 2.1.20) How does it compare to the women’s use of the carnival?

2. Angellica and Blunt are sort of outside the ‘main action’ of the play. What is their function? What morals do they reflect as counter examples? 2.1.145; 2.1.275; 2.2.55-75; 2.2.90; 3.2/354-55; 5.1.325/369

3. Why are there traditionally 2 couples in comedy? What do Willmore/Hellena and Belville/Florinda teach the audience in juxtaposition? 3.1.95-240/353

 4. Florinda’s independent choices in love lead her to some compromising positions. What do you think Behn wants to teach her audience through these scenes? 4.3.150/364-65; 5.1.28/366

5. For a comedy, The Rover has several moments of averted tragedy and violence. How do you interpret these violent scenes? How do they still remain comic and not tragic? (2.1.205/348; 4.3.135/364; 5.1.100/366; 5.1.325/369)

C.

1. How do the couples match up? Are their unions inevitable, or are they conveniences of the comic plot?

2. Compare and contrast male behavior with female behavior in this play. What behaviors are socially sanctioned for men but not for women?

3. Is The Rover a feminist play?

1. For a comedy, The Rover has several moments of averted tragedy and violence. How do you interpret these violent scenes? How do they still remain comic and not tragic? (2.1.205/348; 4.3.135/364; 5.1.100/366; 5.1.325/369)

2. In what ways do characters in The Rover have to play roles? How might Behn be commenting on the predicament of the Restoration actress? 

3. Is there a difference between the female characters of Behn’s play and those of Hamlet? In other words, is it possible to perceive a distinction between female roles written for boy-actresses and those written for female players, as Maus suggests? Between these roles as written by men and those written by a woman?

4. If the world of The Rover were presented today as a documentary, what would be the resulting image of Restoration society? How does this fictive representation compare to a historical outline?