Abstract: This article examines The Second Part of the Rover (1681), Aphra Behn's second adaptation of Thomas Killigrew's Thomaso (1664). It argues that Behn's lifting of Thomaso 's plot points and language constitutes a complex engagement with its sexual politics. Behn's critique of Thomaso 's libertinism is centered around her engagement with its language of appetite and has two distinct strands: her redistribution of Thomaso 's speeches to La Nuche, played by Elizabeth Barry, and her revision of the Thomaso subplot revolving around a pair of supposedly monstrous sisters, which relies on innovative embodied modes of performance. Through both strategies, Behn appropriates the libertine emphasis on physicality to critique libertine rhetoric while innovating generically.
Juliana Beykirch (2025) studied this question.