“What Town's this Boy?”: English civic politics, Virginia's urban debate, and Aphra Behn'sThe Widow Ranter
Paul Musselwhite
Abstract This essay explores Aphra Behn's play The Widow Ranter as evidence for a trans-atlantic discussion about urban political culture in the later seventeenth century. play, written 1688, is heavily fictionalised dramatisation of rebellion that had gripped English colony Virginia 12 years earlier. rebel leader, Nathaniel Bacon, burned down colony's only city, Jamestown, and retelling story pays particular attention to this inferno. historical Bacon's arson can be understood product long-standing dispute between ordinary settlers governor over ways which town development was being pursued. But colonial rooted contested nature life contemporary England, where charter rights freedoms towns cities were challenged by royal efforts consolidate control realm. conflict led circulation around Atlantic world contradictory definitions ideal social constitution town. argues Behn, staunch royalist, recognised these strands at work events Virginia. She dramatised legitimate cavalier patriarch corrupt authorities. In way, Behn used government, sphere, eventual conflagration Jamestown comment on status debate England. Ranter, therefore, not simply an vision exotic but part circum-Atlantic era expanding state imperial control.
Atlantic Studies