Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The Rover II

In Act Two, Scene One of Behn's play, Don Pedro sings a pastoral-esque song to the desired Angellica: "And with the kind force he taught the virgin how/ To yield what all his sighs could never do." Subsequently, Pedro and the scoundrel Antonio quarrel and schedule a fight. The song seems to invoke Cavalier poetry (Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" comes to mind) and its values. What does this song, in this context, transform or comment on the ethos of the Restoration era and its literature?

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