Background and Plot Summary:

Aphra Behn was the first professional writer in England who was also a woman. The Rover, her most successful play (1677), is a romantic comedy set in carnival time in Naples (think Mardi Gras) during the time that Oliver Cromwell (the Puritan) ruled in England. Thus the "prince" referred to on page 17 is Charles II, who is apparently biding his time at sea, while he waits to be restored to the English crown.

At sea with him are a number of loyalist, and therefore dispossessed, nobles, including Willmore, the Rover. On shore is a family that dominates the play’s opening: especially two sisters: Florinda ( in love with Belville, an English Colonel that had saved her during the siege of Pamplona [p. 9]), but destined by her father to be married off to the "rich old Don Vincentio," and by her brother to marry his friend, Antonio) and Hellena, expected to become a nun. The plot of the play involves how Florinda and Belville work to elude the plans of both brother and dad, and how Willmore and Hellena spark each other’s interest.

The play opens with the sisters scheming to join the carnival in disguise and seek a few thrills. Sailors just ashore more than oblige. The plot is complicated by the courtesan Angellica, whose favors many seek, but who falls hard for Willmore, and the courtesan Luchetta, who dupes Blunt, a comrade to the English nobles.

The greatest number of complications arise in Acts III and IV, when Willmore (drunk) almost rapes Florinda (p. 66), and then wounds Antonio in a fight over Angellica Bianca (p. 71). In the confusion, Belville gets arrested instead of Wilmore.

In Act IV there is tremendous confusion. The wounded Antonio has taken prisoner Belville, who he thinks is Willmore. Antonio recruits the disguised Belville to fight Antonio’s former friend and now rival (Don Pedro) for Angellica Bianca. Belville, who thinks of Antonio as HIS rival for Florinda, misunderstands and thinks Antonio is recruiting him to fight some OTHER unknown rival for Florinda. He doesn’t realize he will be facing Florinda’s own brother, Don Pedro; he is therefore non-plussed during the duel when Florinda breaks in to save her brother (p. 78), who is in disguise, as is Belville (hence Florinda doesn’t recognize him).

Thinking Belville is Antonio and that he has just shown both valor and generosity, fighting for Florinda (not Angellica Bianca), Pedro decides to allow Antonio (really Belville) to marry Florinda. Belville manages to identify himself to Florinda, but then Willmore comes in and knocks off his mask, thus blowing his disguise before Dan Pedro, who has objected all along to the Belville/Florinda match. Don Pedro spirits his sister off, and the lovers are back to square one.

Meanwhile, there is a not so confusing interchange between Angellica, Willmore, and Hellena (disguised as a messenger boy from herself). Then Florinda manages to escape her brother’s clutches long enough to take refuge in some random house (Belville’s!), where the duped and defrocked Blunt is waiting for clothes and vowing revenge on all women. For the second time in the play Florinda is almost raped, this time saved by Frederick, who begins to think she might be a "maid of quality."

In Act V Florinda is saved one last time, and the expected couples emerge.