Margaret Cavendish
Margaret Cavendish's prolific and wide-ranging contributions to seventeenth-century intellectual culture are impossible to contain within the discrete confines of modern academic disciplines. Paying attention to the innovative uses of genre through which she enhanced and complicated her writings both within literature and beyond, this collection addresses her oeuvre and offers the most comprehensive and multidisciplinary resource on Cavendish's works to date. The astonishing breadth of her varied intellectual achievements is reflected through elegantly arranged sections on History of Science, Philosophy, Literature, Politics and Reception, and New Directions, together with an Afterword by award-winning novelist Siri Hustvedt. The first book to cover nearly all of Cavendish's major works in a single volume, this collection brings together a variety of expert perspectives to illuminate the remarkable ideas and achievements of one of the most fascinating and prolific figures of the early modern period.
- Gathers the latest Cavendish scholarship from academics in the fields of History of Science, Philosophy, Literature, Politics and Digital Humanities, enabling and encouraging mutual access and productive interaction between disciplines
- Addresses all of Cavendish's major works, providing readers with the most comprehensive resource on Cavendish's oeuvre to date
- Gives particular attention Cavendish's use of genre, illuminating the complex ways in which she both utilized and challenged genre even in her philosophical, scientific and political texts, as well as how she used genre to generate meaning
Reviews & endorsements
'This new collection expertly gathers the work of a variety of scholars from diverse disciplines and connects the many threads that bring us closer to understanding the value of reading Margaret Cavendish from many perspectives at once.' Delilah Bermudez Brataas, Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal
Product details
May 2022Adobe eBook Reader
9781108801669
0 pages
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- Introduction: The intellectual span of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle Brandie R. Siegfried and Lisa Walters
- History of Science:
- 1. Margaret Cavendish: Natural philosopher and feminist Carolyn Merchant
- 2. Margaret Cavendish thinks about sex Lisa T. Sarasohn
- 3. Margaret Cavendish and the rhetoric and aesthetics of the microscopic image in seventeenth-century England Stephen Clucas
- 4. Margaret Cavendish and the nature of infinity Sara Mendelson
- Philosophy:
- 5. Cavendish's philosophy of the passions: Theory and practice Jacqueline Broad and Maks Sipowicz
- 6. Cavendish, Philosophical Letters, and the Plenum David Cunning
- 7. Cavendish's philosophical genres in Philosophical and Physical Opinions and the question of hierarchy Karen Detlefsen
- Literature:
- 8. Of webs and wonder: The atomic vitalism of Margaret Cavendish's Poems and Fancies Brandie R. Siegfried
- 9. The Blazing World: Literary history, genre, and the inner world Mary Baine Campbel
- 10. Margaret Cavendish's Prudence
- or, preservation and transformation in Playes (1662) and Plays Never Before Printed (1668) Lara Dodds
- 11. Lady Newcastle's 'Unsoiled Petticoats' and the literary reputation of Margaret Cavendish, 1652–1985 James Fitzmaurice
- Politics and Reception:
- 12. The politics of the English civil wars in Natures Pictures Mihoko Suzuki
- 13. Cavendish: The nexus among orations, power, and women intellectuals Hilda L. Smith
- 14. Margaret Cavendish's sociable letter #16: Women's political obligation and independence Joanne H. Wright
- New Directions:
- 15. Close reading (and) textual bibliography: How many parts does Margaret Cavendish's Blazing World have? Liza Blake
- 16. Companions, competitors, contexts: Margaret Cavendish in women writers online Sarah Connell
- 17. Cavendish studies and the digital turn Jacob Tootalian and Shawn Moore
- Afterword: Margaret Cavendish: A grandmother for twenty-first century philosophy of science Siri Hustvedt.