“The Conscious Grove”: Generic Experimentation in Aphra Behn's Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister (1684–87)

Abstract

Aphra Behn's Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister (1684–87) is her first foray into fiction, after a successful career writing for the London stage. After a long period of unjust neglect by specialists on the early novel, this text gained critical recognition thanks to the work of scholars like Janet Todd. Research on Love-Letters has mainly focused on the historical-cum-political circumstances that illuminate it; assessments of its female protagonist, Silvia; or the text's use of the epistolary form. This article proposes a reading of Love-Letters from the perspective of literary genre, and contends that it constitutes a remarkable example of generic hybridity in its revisions of the forms of the female complaint, the pastoral romance, and the novel of infidelity. In addition, it shows that Behn's experiment with genre through the letter form articulates and parallels Silvia's multifaceted personality, as the protagonist moves from romance heroine to female rogue. This generic and character evolution further delineates the complex and varied nature of the novel in the late seventeenth century.