Aphra Behn, The Rover, or The Banish't Cavaliers

Dawn Lewcock (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.04: English Writing and Culture of the Seventeenth Century, 1625-1688.
Vol. editors: Jennifer Brady (Rhodes College), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Neil Forsyth (Université de Lausanne), Claire Preston (Queen Mary, University of London), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1677 - 1681

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

The Rover

or, The Banish't Cavaliers

was Aphra Behn's most popular play and was one of the first to be revived in the twentieth century. Although it may have been shown earlier it is known to have been performed on 24th March 1677, in front of Charles II, by the Duke's Company at Dorset Gardens theatre. The plot was loosely based on Thomas Killigrew's closet drama

Thomaso: or the Wanderer

but Behn cut down the original material, reducing Killigrew's long discursive scenes, and combining others to make a faster pace. She also changed much of the characterisation, and added an entirely new heroine in Hellena. She defended charges of plagiarism but made no real secret of her debt to Killigrew. Thriftily Behn later used some of the material she had discarded in

The Rover Part II.

The Rover is

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2771 words

Citation: Lewcock, Dawn. "The Rover, or The Banish't Cavaliers". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 November 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7622, accessed 25 November 2024.]

Aphra Behn, The Rover, or The Banish't Cavaliers

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Resources

Save this article

Leave Feedback