Upon Nothing

Aphra Behn based some of the most baudy characters in her plays on John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, whom she knew because they were both among the most notable figures of the court of Charles II. Wilmot was, in a court of outrageous hooligans, perhaps the most perverse of them all.

Yet, I am reminded of Salieri's complaint, that God should have chosen to give such talent to such a childish reprehensible fool as Mozart. (At least such a rephrehensible fool as the movie version of Mozart.) For Wilmot's talent as a wordsmith is great,

Love In Fantastic Triumph Sate

Aphra Behn wrote in the days just after Shakespeare. She was, by all accounts, not your average woman.

As a Tory she staunchly defended the King, against the Parliament. She believed in kings in the abstract sense. Which king it happened to be made little difference. He could be a good king or a bad king, a wise king or a foolish king. In fact this particular king was neither good nor wise, as Aphra Behn would learn. Charles II perfectly fit his epitaph, written by his close friend John Wilmot the Earl of Rochester:

Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King,
Whose word no man relies on,
Who never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever did a wise one.

Wanton As Unfledged Cupids

Aphra Behn was the first woman that any English people knew of to earn her living through her literature. Of course that ignores the Hebrew and pagan Sybyls who lived on their words, as well as many other prophetess poets from a variety of religions around the world. Ah, so we are, we so easily assume that our own small circle represents the whole of vast creation. So Aphra Behn was hailed and hated as the first woman in the history of the world to earn her living with her writing.

During her time, the later 1600's, she had to struggle to be accepted as a legitimate author