Women's Contribution to Early Modern Utopian Speculations on the New World: Oroonoko and The Widow Ranter by Aphra Behn

Literature on the New World with its interconnection with utopian writing of the early modern age unveils the deep role played by the New World in the European imagination as an ‘ideal’ space in which to experiment with various forms of government, project repressed fantasies and desires and locate utopian communities. The New World, as utopian scholars have emphasized, also represented a real space where new forms of societies could be experimented and established in the hope of, and the longing for, a new and better life. Moving from the recent debates on this topic, my essay aims to interrogate women’s approach to this type of literature and their use of the New World as a possible space for women’s cultural empowerment and agency. In particular, I intend to examine how Aphra Behn employs the English colonies (Surinam in Oroonoko, 1688, and Virginia in The Widow Ranter, 1689) to delve into historical and political events ‒ from which women were excluded ‒ to claim recognition as writer and Subject, and to investigate and question the use of the utopian imaginary itself.