Audiobook · read by volunteers
Song (Behn version)
Aphra Behn (1640–1689)
Read by Clarica, Cori Samuel, Elizabeth Palmer, Ezwa, Joe Brenneman, Jeanette Ferguson, Lee Ann Howlett, Mark F. Smith · 8 chapters · 8 min
About the book
A short lyric by Aphra Behn, one of the first Englishwomen to earn her living by writing, here heard in eight different voices. The song is a seventeenth-century lyric, written in the age of the Restoration theatre, when songs were a familiar part of an evening out. Each of the volunteer readers in this collection approaches the same few lines in her or his own way, finding a different pace, mood and shade of feeling. Behn wrote for the theatre as well as the page, and her songs were made to be heard. The recordings are brief, so the set is easy to play from start to finish and a pleasure to compare. It is a small gift for anyone who enjoys early English poetry or who simply likes to hear one text from many angles.
Introduction
Aphra Behn lived from 1640 to 1689. She is remembered as one of the first professional women writers in English, and she worked as a playwright, a poet and a novelist at a time when few women had been allowed to do so. Her best-known works include the play The Rover and the short novel Oroonoko. Her plays were popular in the theatres of Restoration London, where songs, jokes and intrigue were part of every evening.
The poem presented here is a song. Songs of this kind were often written for a play and then circulated on their own, and they usually deal with love, desire, inconstancy or the games of courtship. Behn's lyrics are known for their directness and their sense of humour, and many of them speak boldly of feelings that other writers of her day preferred to leave unsaid. The language is that of the late seventeenth century, with its elegant rhythms and neat turns.
This collection began as a weekly poetry project among LibriVox volunteers in the spring of 2007. Eight readers each recorded the same text, and the versions have been gathered here. The whole set lasts only a few minutes. It is an easy way to meet an important woman writer, and also a chance to hear how reading style changes a poem.
The poem is so short that you can easily hear all eight versions in one sitting. Notice what changes from one reading to the next: tempo, emphasis, the smile or sigh behind a line. It is an enjoyable lesson in how much a voice contributes to a poem.
Public domain
Aphra Behn died in 1689: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text