Reflections “Going Surprising” with Aphra Behn.

This essay examines the role of surprise as an aesthetic and affective experience in Aphra Behn’s 1688 work *Oroonoko*, focusing on two unconventional grammatical uses of "surprise" that reveal surprise as a sustained, voluntary orientation rather than a brief, involuntary reaction. It argues that surprise in Behn’s text functions as a moderated, anticipated experience closely tied to literary genre, which Berlant defines as an “aesthetic structure of affective expectation” that balances familiarity with variation. Drawing on eighteenth-century aesthetic discourse and psychological theory, the essay situates surprise alongside related affects like interest, showing how both depend on recognizing difference within familiar types, thus linking surprise to the processes of classification and genre recognition. Ultimately, the essay suggests that surprise is a key affect in genres that engage with their own conventions—such as travel narratives, novels, and horror—where the “not-too-surprising surprise” shapes readers’ expectations and pleasures.