Masculinity and Narrative Voice in Aphra Behn's Love Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister

Abstract

ABSTRACT Critics have often remarked on the character and formal instabilities in Aphra Behn's Love Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister, especially as it relates to the titular sister, Silvia. Silvia's uneven transition from romantic heroine in Volume I to hardened rake in Volume III has flummoxed many, as has the text's steady abandonment of the first volume's epistolary form. This essay argues that the two issues are mutually constitutive: the epistolary form, on which Silvia's feminine subjectivity depended, erodes as Silvia becomes more masculine. The third-person narrator's increasing authority across three volumes both highlights and contains that masculinity. The narrator is not simply a formal entity but rather an actively biased voice who shapes our understanding of Silvia's character by simultaneously reporting and denying Silvia's masculinity. Love Letters represents the disruptive potential of a gender-nonconforming figure, but also the disciplinary structures designed to keep such subjects in check.