Margaret Cavendish
An Interdisciplinary Perspective

This collection provides the most comprehensive, multidisciplinary study of the works of Margaret Cavendish currently available.

Lisa Walters (Edited by), Brandie R. Siegfried (Edited by)

9781108490368, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 May 2022

300 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.62 kg

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.

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.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], Gender studies, gender groups [JFSJ], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]