Poor Little Robin

For a man that moaned so much at being alone and marooned on an island, I find it incredible that his first reaction to finding some evidence of another human is an irrational panicked flight back to his 'castle.'  I readily grant that the person could have been unfriendly and violent, and it would have been prudent to make sure that Robinson sees the intruder to his 'kingdom' before the stranger sees him. Ironically, as we have just spent a significant amount of time having Robinson's newfound faith expounded to us, he immediately thinks the devil must have set foot on the island. Really? You can spend years developing a system of creating clay pots without any prior knowledge, but you spend those same years diligently studying the bible and automatically the devil has come to test your faith?
In all honesty Robinson seems almost reluctant to leave his solitary life. As he notes earlier, "I was removed from all the wickedness of the world here.... for I had all that I was no capable of enjoying." Indeed, he has food to eat, a dry shelter, and pets for company, all painstakingly earned with hard labor and sweat. For all his initial rage that he might die in the storm, or starve on the shore, Crusoe has found that this life suits him better than civilization. Going back to his conversations with his father about finding happiness in life in the lower middle class of people, his father tells him that in this group he should have income enough to pursue any diversion he should desire, but without the jealousy, envy, and greed so common to the upper class. Clearly, Robinson finds this unappealing, and I wonder if, in becoming an archetypal self sufficient pioneer, has he not found the 'class' that his father told him of?
He is told that only the truly adventurous rich man, or the truly desperate peasant, strike out into the new world. Those in the middle stay right where they are at, beause they have no enough to gain, and too much to lose in a gamble like that. Think of the many times that Robinson mentions the money he saved from the ship and how uttlerly useless it is to him on his island. I wonder at the meaning of the passage where he talks about how much he would pay for some of the smallest conveniences of the old world, and yet how he manages to eventually make the pipe that he wanted to badly, or the clothes that he was missing. It is as if, given enough time, and nothing else to divert the attention span, a person might well teach to themselve any number of useful skills and can in fact be an island unto themself. I am wondering if Defoe here is intimating that civilization might produce more out of its people, but a sort of law of diminishing returns goes into effect as each person needs to produce less to survive, then they will. Now I recognize that Crusoe eventually has companions, but how telling is his initial reaction to evidence of another human? How much has he grown to love that he is niether high, low, nor middle in the strata of humans?

Early Modern Young and the Restless

In Love in Excess Haywood manages to create a fairly large cast of characters that encourage the reader to struggle to find redeeming factors in them. This search may very well be a wild goose chase. If they were not the one's committing or attempting to commit terrible acts, they were just slightly too quick to believe their friends/lovers/family members capable of committing them. Brillian is quick to believe D'elmont would betray him for money, which only makes even less sense of the fact that he believes D'elmont when he says his wife is just crazy through no fault of his own. Aloysa is willing to sabotage the reputation of Amena for the sole purpose of gaining D'elmont, yet is surprised when he proves to be unfaithful. Camilla arose as my personal favorite as she was willing to love anyone except Cittelini, as long as they can save her from Cittelini. What I see are a group of people so unused to being denied anything that what they are denied becomes an object of desire to be mistaken for love.

What makes this story compelling is Haywood's insistence that this is the way it ought to be. When speaking of the how we should love she writes, "When love once becomes in our power, it ceases to worthy of that name; no man really posest with it, can be master of his actions; and whatever effects it may enforce, are no more to be condemned, than poverty, sickness, deformity or any other misfortune incident to humane nature." She goes on to say that those who preach moderation do not understand what love is, and that the actions of one in love can take two forms: one exalted, and one base depending on the nature of the person in love. This is clearly evident throughout the novel, albeit with more emphasis on the "coventousness, envy, pride, revenge" than on ambition and love. Of which all actions should be forgiven by a "generous heart," as they stem from love.

I can accept that interpretation of love as a premise for a story, if it seemed that the characters in the story who professed love for another actually seemed to follow that idea. Except that they do not. They attempt to preserve first the appearance of the propriety that their character's clearly show they do not possess. In one of D'elmont's letters he expresses that he would have expected inconstancy from a character like Melantha, but does she really seem to be any less reliable than any of the other characters? If anything she gives a little more honest interpretation of her intentions. Amena seems to be more upset that D'elmont is reluctant to approach her father with honest intentions, than at being caught and disgraced. More so the 'love' is invariably a physical one, just waiting for a more desirous object to attach itself to, as evidenced by D'elmont's love for Melliora nearly being displaced at first site of Camilla, possibly only held in place by not ever having that physicality realized. Essentially, the only character that managed to keep their wits about them while lustful thoughts filled their head (Melliora) is the love object that manages to stay constant under assault from another beauty.

Oroonoko and Pop Culture

Oroonoko is a case where I think I like the criticism of the story even more than I appreciated the tale. Specifically her contemporaries ideas of criticism, in that, often, they seemed to be more personal than professional criticisms.

As from Bishop Burnet (p. 189), "Some of Ms. Behn's songs are very tender; but she is so abominably vile a woman..." The man even seems to be admitting that Behn has some skill and talent with a pen, but for nothing as she misuses 'virtue' and 'religion' for personal gain. Another finds her work entirely unsuitable for either man or woman and "she was to be look'd upon as an Hermaphrodite, & consequently not fit to enjoy the benefits... of this society." (190) And my personal favorite of the negative criticism (at least as printed in the Norton Critical edition) , is not only a criticism of Behn, but of mass literacy  where Andrew Kippis declares that the only people still reading Behn’s work are “among that unhappily too numerous class of people who devour the trash of the circulating libraries.” Clearly, Behn had no shortage of harsh criticisms, but really more directed towards the fact that she was a woman, than her skill as either writer or storyteller.

This trends into the positive direction as well. Charles Cotton seems to be as much in love with Behn as with her writing. There were some that seemed to be willing to bleed for her, and others that were willing to bleed her, so that she might not write anymore. What makes this interesting to me is that it is so very much similar to what you see today, if not of book reviews, than movies or theatre productions. More than a few of the comments if updated to the language of today sounded similar to, “I guess it was alright, but I just can’t stand anything to do with Aphra Behn.”

It might be a bit of a reach, but I think this says something about the popularity of what would later become mass popular culture in that it is driven as much by people loving not only the works of creative artists, but loving to bash those works and their creators as mercilessly as their slightly less creative minds will allow. Not because any of the works are inherently bad, but because it becomes difficult to separate the person from the work, when one sees and hears of their exploits on a regular basis.

For that matter, in Brown’s “The Romance of Empire,” a case is made that Oroonoko can serve as a stand in for the execution of Charles II. Which from the standpoint of hundreds of years later means very little to me, but for her contemporaries, some of whom most certainly would have made this connection, it would have been an issue that could easily cause such remarkable disparity between supporters and detractors. In a way it simply manages to affirm for me that any publicity is good publicity, and, sometimes, the negative is just as good as the positive.