Gender Assumptions in Aphra Behn's 'To the Fair Clorinda' and in John Donne's 'Sappho to Philaenis'

Abstract

How can literature of the 17th century become relevant to our contemporary ideas about gender and sexuality? This essay explores how Aphra Behn’s ‘To the Fair Clorinda’ and Donne’s ‘Sappho to Philaenis’ resist conventional assumptions about gender, as it focuses on the poems’ themes of hermaphroditism, gender fluidity and queer love. This resistance appears through processes of fragmentation and doubling as well as subversion of poetic form. Rather than exploring what the writer intended to portray, this discussion attempts to explore the complexities of gender and sexuality by drawing on recent concepts and ideas about gender and queer theory, and aims to develop a more modern reading of the poems where male and female binaries are obliterated and where these poetic figures break free from any heteronormative expectations.