HARLEQUIN SCIENCE: APHRA BEHN'S EMPEROR OF THE MOON AND THE PLURALITY OF WORLDS.

In recent years, Aphra Behn's Emperor of the Moon (1687) has begun to attract considerable critical attention. Behn's play has been explored in the context of contemporary concerns about farce and spectacle, as a satire on the Royal Society or pedantic male scholarship, as a critique on identity issues, and even as an example of class mobility. This essay argues that Behn's play is largely a response to her reading of Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la pluralite' des mondes (1686) and that through commedia dell'arte, she ridicules that still contentious 'scientific' notion - the plurality of worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]