Some Current Publications

Abstract

Some Current Publications Allison Y. Gibeily Restoration seeks compilers for "Some Current Publications." Those interested should send an email indicating interest to the editors at restorationjournal@umd.edu. Advanced graduate students are especially encouraged to apply. MARY ASTELL See ANNE KILLIGREW (Alexander) JANE BARKER See WOMEN WRITERS (Horesji) APHRA BEHN Alexander, Laura. Fatal Attractions, Abjection, and the Self in Literature from the Restoration to the Romantics. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019. Focusing on select long eighteenth-century texts, Alexander offers a reinterpretation of works like Walter Charleton's The Ephesian Matron and Aphra Behn's The History of the Nun in the context of Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection as outlined in Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1982). Alexander suggests that abjection causes a vacillation between fear of death, violence against self and others, and erotic fantasies (or actions) involving the dead. Tracing the close ties between discourses of mortality and sexuality, Alexander places abjection at the heart of the eighteenth-century questions of the self. Griffin, Megan. "Dismembering the Sovereign in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko." ELH, vol. 86, no. 1, 2019, pp. 107–133. Griffin opens her article with a discussion of Oroonoko's closing scene where the eponymous character is violently dismembered and killed. Like many critics, she is interested in the effects of these authorial decisions, particularly given Behn's royalist politics. Griffin's answer is twofold. First, she suggests that the scene's [End Page 99] discomfort lies in its disruption of hierarchical power structures, allowing for a king (Oroonoko) to be subjected to the form of punishment reserved specifically for regicides. Second, the way in which Oroonoko dies upsets the comfortable narrative of classical war-based slavery that British colonizers were peddling. The result, she argues, is anarchy and social chaos, two consequences that Behn portrays as more horrifying than physical mutilation itself. See also ANNE KILLIGREW (Alexander) JOHN BUNYAN See JOHN MILTON (Sauer) MARGARET CAVENDISH See PRINT & PUBLICATION HISTORY (Mulvihill), SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (Thompson), THEOLOGY (Cahill), TRAVEL LITERATURE (Hawes) CHARLES II See ANNE KILLIGREW (Alexander), SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (Komorowski & Song), THEOLOGY (Neelakanta, Pudney, Weimer) WALTER CHARLETON See APHRA BEHN (Alexander) COLLEY CIBBER Castro-Santana, Anaclara. "Henry Fielding's Last Bow at Colley Cibber." Studies in Philology, vol. 116, no. 4, 2019, pp. 784–810. Rooting her argument in the historical feud between Henry Fielding and Colley Cibber, Castro-Santana nuances the vitriolic exchanges between the two playwrights in the earlyto mideighteenth century. While many critics have focused on Fielding's better-known lampoons like Shamela, Castro-Santana follows the Cibberian lineage of what she calls Fielding's "bleakest, and seemingly least theatrical" work, Amelia (787). As Cibber rose in rank and respect, the aspiring new playwright Fielding repeatedly criticized the famous poet laureate and manager of Drury Lane for a lack of creativity and originality. Fielding disapproves of the way Cibber's later plays rehashed the same plots, characters, and even costumes of those in the late seventeenth century. Yet through this obsessive censuring of Cibber, Fielding becomes trapped by the works of the man he so loathes – a double-edged sword that inspires Castro-Santana's careful biographical and literary analysis. JOHN CROWNE See THEOLOGY (Neelakanta) WILLIAM DAVENANT Watkins, Stephen. "The Protectorate Playhouse: William Davenant's Cockpit in the 1650s." Shakespeare Bulletin, vol. 37, no. 1, 2019, pp. 89–109. In his four-part article, Watkins analyzes the physical space of William Davenant's Cockpit and its evolving political alignments from the Protectorate through the early Restoration. By first redefining what is considered "opera" in the mid-seventeenth century, Watkins imagines the Cockpit in Drury Lane as an epicenter of both theatrical [End Page 100] and political evolution. Following Davenant's changing loyalties in the years immediately before and after the restoration of Charles II, this article explores the tumultuous politics of this period through the lens of theater culture and commerce. JOHN DRYDEN Hackenbracht, Ryan. "Marvell, Dryden, and Commercial Fishing Propaganda during the Anglo-Dutch Wars." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 59, no. 3, 2019, pp. 485–506. Taking as his focus two main texts – Andrew Marvell's "The Character of Holland" (1652–53) and John Dryden's Amboyna: or...