BEHN, Aphra (trans.); TALLAMENT, Paul.

£3,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Lycidus: Or, the Lover in Fashion. First edition of the author's final poetic work. Lycidus, Behn's characteristically worldly version of Tallament's 1663 Voyage to the Island of Love, occupies the first half of the text. A collection of poetry comprises the rest of the volume, including Behn's "To the fair Clarinda", whose dedicatee is of enigmatic gender. By 1687, Behn was severely unwell, but her enthusiasm for writing remained undiminished; she published ten books in 1688. Lycidus was the second translation of Tallament's fantastical epic that Behn produced, the first having appeared in her 1684 Poems Upon Several Occasions. In both cases, Behn re-framed the original text to have more focus on the female experience, but her later version replaced sincere romance with a cynical attitude to love. The eponymous hero becomes a swaggering lover who delights in coquetry and flirtation but ultimately decides to "bid adieu to fond Love for ever" (p. 64). The effect is to present "an older literary and amorous person looking elegiacally back over experience" (Todd, p. 380). The poems included alongside Lycidus are attributed to Behn and others. Some are typically pastoral, whilst others are more descriptive of everyday realities than her earlier works, such as a poem of thanks for a gift of orange-flower water. Among them, "To the fair Clarinda", attributed to Behn, stands out. Addressed to a "Beauteous wonder of a different kind" who appears as both a "Fair lovely maid" and a "lo

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