Ask any man to summarize an Aphra Behn poem and he will most likely tell you that it is the story of two lovers whose physical passion is all consuming despite the propriety of the time. As a woman to summarize an Aphra Behn poem, however, and you will probably get a different explanation. This is due to the fact that her work often contains a subtext that can slip by unnoticed because it is so well disguised.
One of Behn's main preoccupations is love, and chiefly, the need to prioritise it over all other things, particularly business of the day. She also shows how general niceness and honor are cast aside in favor of a free and easy love; for example, in A Farewell to Celladon, On his Going into Ireland, Celladon is asked why he is bothered with working when he knows that success professionally will not make him happy, whereas the company of a lover will. His priorities are all wrong, according to his friend, and he needs somebody from whom "love nor fate can nere divide him."
Similarly, she shows how much more important a relationship is over politics, enterprise and business in the poem Pindarique. .The importance of love is stressed in a pastoral way, with a character who is in some way an adviser making sure that his friend is not sacrificing their long term happiness for short-term monetary gain.
Her poems are often thinly-veiled allegories of her friends' social situations, more specifically their sexual relationships. She also casts many of the male characters in her poems as the enemies of women without explicitly stating so. In A Paraphrase on a Translation out of French she contends that lovers, when not bound by constraints, are less than civilized, which can cause hurt and heartbreak. Women understand their sexuality and would be able to teach men how to embrace that and appreciate it if only their trust was not broken and their love betrayed. This is the first example in her work of positioning the male as the harbinger of hurt within a relationship.
In Mr. Ed. Bed. Behn describes a relationship that is more homoerotic than friendship; in fact she states that it is "too amorous for a Swain to a Swain", which means that it is more of a relationship of attraction than of brotherly love. The relationship between Philander and Lycidas is in many ways a forbidden love, it is implicitly sexual and states that Philander gives all of his love to Lycidas because he is besotted with him. Behn's poetry is filled with homoeroticism, either in relationships between men, or relationships that represent her own feelings of attraction to other women. Behn was married, and widowed early, and was known to have many relationships with men throughout her life, but she writes of her fantasies about other women, acknowledging her feelings of attraction for them through her poetic fiction.
Her most scandalous poem contains a double meaning that on the surface is about a man who is rendered impotent by a woman he loves, and who therefore runs from her in embarrassment and shame. The Disappointment has a traditional interpretation and a secondary interpretation as well. It is also a poem about rape and presents the female point of view whilst seemingly telling the story from the point of view of a man. Lysander meets Cloris in the woods, and as they are in love, he begins to make some physical advances to her. She resists him and doesn't want to lose her virginity to him, being seen to be a loose woman a fate worse than death to her. He continues to press her to sleep with him; she faints and he proceeds to undress her. She is at his mercy, but he cannot get an erection. He tries to stimulate himself, but is unsuccessful.
When Cloris recovers, she finds herself holding Lysander's penis in her hands and is horrified, and confused. She runs away, and he is furious, filled with a rage that is more thwarted rapist than embarrassed lover. The traditional interpretation is that Lysander is an impotent man angry with his own lack of performance. However, the subtext tells the story of a woman who is exhausted by her efforts to repel unwanted sexual advances, and who is raped whilst defenseless by a man who is impotent. This is hugely unconventional, and also a more aggressive and accusatory poem than her other work, most of which does show men in a less than flattering light but nonetheless shows women to be initially willing participants in a loving relationship.
