*Please, press play on the track above to enjoy the music believed to be enjoyed during this time period. 

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Oroonoko: also known as the Royal Slave is a short work of prose fiction by Aphra Behn, which was published around 1688 by William Canning. Oroonoko is not like any other slave —he is actually the last descendant of a royal line, and the prince of an African country called Coramantien (probably modern-day Ghana).

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Aphra Behn, regarded as the first female to make a living off her writing (Beach, 2010), expanded the
mold of what a novelist is. Her revolutionary work brought a unique voice to the readership, redefining
the image of the writer and straying from norms developed throughout the past.

The novel Oroonoko depicts a prince from Coramantien (presumably present-day Ghana) being enslaved
in South America. The novels’ trope, while still focusing on the upper-class and their politics, displayed
an extreme transition of social categorization while simultaneously introducing race and economic
inequality. The voice of the narrator, a woman, also departs from the trends previously established. By
telling the tale from the perspective of a woman and showing fluctuation in class, Behn opened the
doors for the modern novel to reflect the rise of capitalism and the fall of the monarchies across the
globe, as was becoming apparent during the sixteen and seventeen hundreds.

The expansion of narrative voice, the blending of the aristocratic, bourgeois, and the impoverished, and
the extension of authorship benchmarked new exploration into what the modern novel’s definition
could be. The culture surrounding the novel began to shift to include much more than just the rich, the
coveted, and the influential; it entered the realm of the everyday man

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