"The Dream" by Aphra Behn (poetry reading)

If Shakespeare had lived to age 76 then he would have still been alive when Aphra Behn was born.

She has been called the first female journalist. She was certainly among the first women to earn a living by writing. She "swung both ways", saying her life was all pleasure and poetry.

Her work "The Golden Age" describes a utopia in which women rule and love one another, whilst men are impotent, not permitted to inject their spiteful venom.

She annoyed a few people, particularly Alexander Pope who was, by all accounts, a nasty little man who liked to cut people down with his wit. He didn't succeed because most people defended her. She was very shrewd and on her tombstone in Westminster Abbey it says, "Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defence enough against Mortality."

"the height of languishment" means orgasm. Dying is also a euphemism for orgasm. "La petite mort" as the French say.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_petite_mort

It's a description of a rather strenuous seduction that wouldn't seem right if it came from a man.

Sleep, 1866 was painted by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)

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• Dream
• Aphra
• Behn

[SuicideOnMyMind]

nice vid but i think been better if this poem was spoken by a woman.

[SpokenVerse]

You mean you think I'm a guy?

[souljaEXVOTO]

so sad that suicide is so often on one's mind anyway.

[souljaEXVOTO]

as one of your first few subscribers I can still profess, as I did in the beginning, that I am still in love with you.

I wholly disagree that your voice on feminine pieces and/or by female authors is not the most appropriate and loving throat from which such brilliant works of art should flow.