Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World

From Nancy, one of the useful entries in Pepys's diary about Margaret Cavendish:
http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1667/04/11/
Having received this money I home with Balty and it, and then abroad by coach with my wife and set her down at her father’s, and I to White Hall, thinking there to have seen the Duchess of Newcastle’s coming this night to Court, to make a visit to the Queene, the King having been with her yesterday, to make her a visit since her coming to town. The whole story of this lady is a romance, and all she do is romantick. Her footmen in velvet coats, and herself in an antique dress, as they say; and was the other day at her own play, “The Humourous Lovers;” the most ridiculous thing that ever was wrote, but yet she and her Lord mightily pleased with it; and she, at the end, made her respects to the players from her box, and did give them thanks. There is as much expectation of her coming to Court, that so people may come to see her, as if it were the Queen of Sheba [L&M say “Queen of Sweden”. P.G.]; but I lost my labour, for she did not come this night.

Pepys also said:
(March 18, 1668) Thence home, and there, in favour to my eyes, stayed at home, reading the ridiculous History of my Lord Newcastle, wrote by his wife, which shews her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman, and he an asse to suffer her to write what she writes to him, and of him.

(May 30, 1667) After dinner I walked to Arundell House, the way very dusty, the day of meeting of the Society being changed from Wednesday to Thursday, which I knew not before, because the Wednesday is a Council- day, and several of the Council are of the Society, and would come but for their attending the King at Council; where I find much company, indeed very much company, in expectation of the Duchesse of Newcastle, who had desired to be invited to the Society; and was, after much debate, pro and con., it seems many being against it; and we do believe the town will be full of ballads of it. Anon comes the Duchesse with her women attending her; among others, the Ferabosco, of whom so much talk is that her lady would bid her show her face and kill the gallants. She is indeed black, and hath good black little eyes, but otherwise but a very ordinary woman I do think, but they say sings well. The Duchesse hath been a good, comely woman; but her dress so antick, and her deportment so ordinary, that I do not like her at all, nor did I hear her say any thing that was worth hearing, but that she was full of admiration, all admiration. Several fine experiments were shown her of colours, loadstones, microscopes, and of liquors among others, of one that did, while she was there, turn a piece of roasted mutton into pure blood, which was very rare. Here was Mrs. Moore [L&M say “Mr. Moore”. P.G.] of Cambridge, whom I had not seen before, and I was glad to see her; as also a very pretty black boy that run up and down the room, somebody’s child in Arundell House. After they had shown her many experiments, and she cried still she was full of admiration, she departed, being led out and in by several Lords that were there; among others Lord George Barkeley and Earl of Carlisle, and a very pretty young man, the Duke of Somerset. She gone, I by coach home, and there busy at my letters till night, and then with my wife in the evening singing with her in the garden with great pleasure, and so home to supper and to bed. http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1667/05/30/

(May 10, 1667) Then to my Lord Treasurer’s, but missed Sir Ph. Warwicke, and so back again, and drove hard towards Clerkenwell,¹ thinking to have overtaken my Lady Newcastle, whom I saw before us in her coach, with 100 boys and girls running looking upon her but I could not: and so she got home before I could come up to her. But I will get a time to see her.

May 1, 1667)  Thence Sir W. Pen and I in his coach, Tiburne way, into the Park, where a horrid dust, and number of coaches, without pleasure or order. That which we, and almost all went for, was to see my Lady Newcastle; which we could not, she being followed and crowded upon by coaches all the way she went, that nobody could come near her; only I could see she was in a large black coach, adorned with silver instead of gold, and so white curtains, and every thing black and white, and herself in her cap, but other parts I could not make [out]. But that which I did see, and wonder at with reason, was to find Pegg Pen in a new coach, with only her husband’s pretty sister with her, both patched and very fine, and in much the finest coach in the park, and I think that ever I did see one or other, for neatness and richness in gold, and everything that is noble. My Lady Castlemayne, the King, my Lord St. Albans, nor Mr. Jermyn, have so neat a coach, that ever I saw. And, Lord! to have them have this, and nothing else that is correspondent, is to me one of the most ridiculous sights that ever I did see, though her present dress was well enough; but to live in the condition they do at home, and be abroad in this coach, astonishes me.

(April 26, 1667)  This done Sir W. Batten and I back again to London, and in the way met my Lady Newcastle going with her coaches and footmen all in velvet: herself, whom I never saw before, as I have heard her often described, for all the town-talk is now-a-days of her extravagancies, with her velvetcap, her hair about her ears; many black patches, because of pimples about her mouth; naked-necked, without any thing about it, and a black just-au-corps. She seemed to me a very comely woman: but I hope to see more of her on Mayday. My mind is mightily of late upon a coach.

(March 30, 1667)  Up, and the French periwigg maker of whom I bought two yesterday comes with them, and I am very well pleased with them. So to the office, where all the morning. At noon home to dinner, and thence with my wife’s knowledge and leave did by coach go see the silly play of my Lady Newcastle’s, called “The Humourous Lovers;” the most silly thing that ever come upon a stage. I was sick to see it, but yet would not but have seen it, that I might the better understand her. Here I spied Knipp and Betty, of the King’s house, and sent Knipp oranges, but, having little money about me, did not offer to carry them abroad, which otherwise I had, I fear, been tempted to.

Pepys on anatomy including circulation of the blood, which fascinated Margaret Cavendish too:

Friday 27 February 1662/63
Up and to my office, whither several persons came to me about office business. About 11 o’clock, Commissioner Pett and I walked to Chyrurgeon’s Hall (we being all invited thither, and promised to dine there); where we were led into the Theatre; and by and by comes the reader, Dr. Tearne, with the Master and Company, in a very handsome manner: and all being settled, he begun his lecture, this being the second upon the kidneys, ureters, &c., which was very fine; and his discourse being ended, we walked into the Hall, and there being great store of company, we had a fine dinner and good learned company, many Doctors of Phisique, and we used with extraordinary great respect. Among other observables we drank the King’s health out of a gilt cup given by King Henry VIII. to this Company, with bells hanging at it, which every man is to ring by shaking after he hath drunk up the whole cup. There is also a very excellent piece of the King, done by Holbein, stands up in the Hall, with the officers of the Company kneeling to him to receive their Charter. After dinner Dr. Scarborough took some of his friends, and I went along with them, to see the body alone, which we did, which was a lusty fellow, a seaman, that was hanged for a robbery. I did touch the dead body with my bare hand: it felt cold, but methought it was a very unpleasant sight. It seems one Dillon, of a great family, was, after much endeavours to have saved him, hanged with a silken halter this Sessions (of his own preparing), not for honour only, but it seems, it being soft and sleek, it do slip close and kills, that is, strangles presently: whereas, a stiff one do not come so close together, and so the party may live the longer before killed. But all the Doctors at table conclude, that there is no pain at all in hanging, for that it do stop the circulation of the blood; and so stops all sense and motion in an instant. Thence we went into a private room, where I perceive they prepare the bodies, and there were the kidneys, ureters [&c.], upon which he read to-day, and Dr. Scarborough upon my desire and the company’s did show very clearly the manner of the disease of the stone and the cutting and all other questions that I could think of … [Poor Mr. Wheatley could not even stand a medical lecture on physiology. D.W.] how the water [comes] into the bladder through the three skins or coats just as poor Dr. Jolly has heretofore told me. Thence with great satisfaction to me back to the Company, where I heard good discourse, and so to the afternoon Lecture upon the heart and lungs, &c., and that being done we broke up, took leave, and back to the office, we two, Sir W. Batten, who dined here also, being gone before. Here late, and to Sir W. Batten’s to speak upon some business, where I found Sir J. Minnes pretty well fuddled I thought: he took me aside to tell me how being at my Lord Chancellor’s to-day, my Lord told him that there was a Great Seal passing for Sir W. Pen, through the impossibility of the Comptroller’s duty to be performed by one man; to be as it were joynt-comptroller with him, at which he is stark mad; and swears he will give up his place, and do rail at Sir W. Pen the cruellest; he I made shift to encourage as much as I could, but it pleased me heartily to hear him rail against him, so that I do see thoroughly that they are not like to be great friends, for he cries out against him for his house and yard and God knows what. For my part, I do hope, when all is done, that my following my business will keep me secure against all their envys. But to see how the old man do strut, and swear that he understands all his duty as easily as crack a nut, and easier, he told my Lord Chancellor, for his teeth are gone; and that he understands it as well as any man in England; and that he will never leave to record that he should be said to be unable to do his duty alone; though, God knows, he cannot do it more than a child. All this I am glad to see fall out between them and myself safe, and yet I hope the King’s service well done for all this, for I would not that should be hindered by any of our private differences. So to my office, and then home to supper and to bed.

Robert Hooke's Micrographia

 
Here is a UC Berkeley site that summarizes Hooke's key work on microscopes and has further links:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/hooke.html

An article on Newton, the Royal Society, and the telescope that we have in J-STOR (you will need to be logged in through GSU to access this):

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.gsu.edu/stable/531836?&Search=yes&searchText=Society%27s&searchText=Telescope&searchText=Royal&searchText=Newton&searchText=Account&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DAn%2BAccount%2Bof%2Bthe%2BRoyal%2BSociety%2527s%2BNewton%2BTelescope%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=1&ttl=381&returnArticleService=showFullText
 Or put the search terms "An Account of the Royal Society's Newton Telescope" in the search bar of J-STOR.

If you are interested in the empirical science behind Blazing World you can also search in J-STOR, MLA etc for "Royal Society 1600-1699" or "Royal Society Margaret Cavendish"

Some secondary source suggestions from Nancy:

Royalist, Romancist, Racialist: Rank, Gender, and Race in the Science and Fiction of Margaret Cavendish

(This is  Iyengar, Sujata,  English Literary History 69 (3): 649-72, 2001

http://www.jstor.org/stable/30032037?seq=4

Margaret Cavendish among the prophets: performance ideologies and gender in and after the english civil war

(This is Wiseman, Susan, Women's Writing 6: 95-111, 1999)

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09699089900200062

Cavendish's Poems 

 

 

The weight of Atomes. If Atomes are as small, as small can bee,  They must in quantity of Matter all agree:  And if consisting Matter of the same (be right,)  Then every Atome must weigh just alike.  Thus Quantity, Quality and Weight, all  Together meets in every Atome small.

The joyning of severall Figur'd Atomes make other Figures.  Severall Figur'd Atomes well agreeing,  When joyn'd, do give another Figure being.  For as those Figures joyned, severall waies,  The Fabrick of each severall Creature raise.
_______________  Line 1.  Severall Figur'd: distinctively shaped. Line 2.  Figure: shape, form Line 4.  Severall: distinct, individual.

A World in an Eare-Ring. 

An Eare-ring round may well a Zodiacke bee, 
Where in a Sun goeth round, and we not see. 
And Planets seven about that Sun may move, 
And Hee stand still, as some wise men would prove. 
And fixed Stars, like twinkling Diamonds, plac'd 
About this Eare-ring, which a World is vast. 
That same which doth the Eare-ring hold, the hole, 
Is that, which we do call the Pole. 
There nipping Frosts may be, and Winter cold, 
Yet never on the Ladies Eare take hold.                                   10 
And Lightnings, Thunder, and great Winds may blow 
Within this Eare-ring, yet the Eare not know. 
There Seas may ebb, and flow, where Fishes swim, 
And Islands be, where Spices grow therein. 
There Christall Rocks hang dangling at each Eare, 
And Golden Mines as Jewels may they weare. 
There Earth-quakes be, which Mountains vast downe fling, 
And yet nere stir the Ladies Eare, nor Ring. 
There Meadowes bee, and Pastures fresh, and greene, 
And Cattell feed, and yet be never seene:                                  20 
And Gardens fresh, and Birds which sweetly sing, 
Although we heare them not in an Eare-ring. 
There Night, and Day, and Heat, and Cold, and so 
May Life, and Death, and Young, and Old, still grow. 
Thus Youth may spring, and severall Ages dye, 
Great Plagues may be, and no Infections nigh, 
There Cityes bee, and stately Houses built, 
Their inside gaye, and finely may be gilt. 
There Churches bee, and Priests to teach therein, 
And Steeple too, yet heare the Bells not ring.                            30 
From thence may pious Teares to Heaven run, 
And yet the Eare not know which way they're gone. 
There Markets bee, and things both bought, and sold, 
Know not the price, nor how the Markets hold. 
There Governours do rule, and Kings do Reigne, 
And Battels fought, where many may be slaine. 
And all within the Compasse of this Ring, 
And yet not tidings to the Wearer bring. 
Within the Ring wise Counsellors may sit, 
And yet the Eare not one wise word may get.                           40 
There may be dancing all Night at a Ball, 
And yet the Eare be not disturb'd at all. 
There Rivals Duels fight, where some are slaine; 
There Lovers mourne, yet heare them not complaine. 
And Death may dig a Lovers Grave, thus were 
A Lover Dead, in a Faire Ladies Eare. 
But when the Ring is broke, the World is done, 
Then Lovers they into Elysium run.

Here is a BIOGRAPHICAL article from the Encyclopedia of World Biography. Copyright 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved:

Margaret Lucas Cavendish Biography

Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) was one of the first prolific female science writers. As the author of approximately 14 scientific or quasi-scientific books, she helped to popularize some of the most important ideas of the scientific revolution, including the competing vitalistic and mechanistic natural philosophies and atomism. A flamboyant and eccentric woman, Cavendish was the most visible of the "scientific ladies" of the seventeenth century.
Margaret Lucas was born into a life of luxury near Colchester, England, in 1623, the youngest of eight children of Sir Thomas Lucas. She was educated informally at home. At the age of eighteen, she left her sheltered life to become Maid of Honor to Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, accompanying the queen into exile in France following the defeat of the royalists in the civil war. There she fell in love with and married William Cavendish, the Duke of Newcastle, a 52 year-old widower, who had been commander of the royalist forces in the north of England. Joining other exiled royalists in Antwerp, the couple rented the mansion of the artist Rubens. Margaret Cavendish was first exposed to science in their informal salon society, "The Newcastle Circle," which included the philosophers Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, and Pierre Gassendi. She visited England in 1651-52 to try to collect revenues from the Newcastle estate to satisfy their foreign creditors. It was at this time that Cavendish first gained her reputation for extravagant dress and manners, as well as for her beauty and her bizarre poetry.

Published Original Natural Philosophy

Cavendish prided herself on her originality and boasted that her ideas were the products of her own imagination, not derived from the writings of others. Cavendish's first anthology, Poems, and Fancies, included the earliest version of her natural philosophy. Although English atomic theory in the seventeenth century attempted to explain all natural phenomena as matter in motion, in Cavendish's philosophy all atoms contained the same amount of matter but differed in size and shape; thus, earth atoms were square, water particles were round, atoms of air were long, and fire atoms were sharp. This led to her humoral theory of disease, wherein illness was due to fighting between atoms or an overabundance of one atomic shape. However in her second volume, Philosophical Fancies, published later in the same year, Cavendish already had disavowed her own atomic theory. By 1663, when she published Philosophical and Physical Opinions, she had decided that if atoms were "Animated Matter," then they would have "Free-will and Liberty" and thus would always be at war with one another and unable to cooperate in the creation of complex organisms and minerals. Nevertheless, Cavendish continued to view all matter as composed of one material, animate and intelligent, in contrast to the Cartesian view of a mechanistic universe.

Challenged Other Scientists

Cavendish and her husband returned to England with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and, for the first time, she began to study the works of other scientists. Finding herself in disagreement with most of them, she wrote Philosophical Letters: or, Modest Reflections upon some Opinions in Natural Philosophy, maintained by several Famous and Learned Authors of this Age, Expressed by way of Letters in 1664. Cavendish sent copies of this work, along with Philosophical and Physical Opinions, by special messenger to the most famous scientists and celebrities of the day. In 1666 and again in 1668, she published Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, a response to Robert Hooke's Micrographia, in which she attacked the use of recently-developed microscopes and telescopes as leading to false observations and interpretations of the natural world. Included in the same volume with Observations was The Blazing World was a semi-scientific utopian romance, in which Cavendish declared herself "Margaret the First."

Invited to the Royal Society

More than anything else, Cavendish yearned for the recognition of the scientific community. She presented the universities of Oxford and Cambridge with each of her publications and she ordered a Latin index to accompany the writings she presented to the University of Leyden, hoping thereby that her work would be utilized by European scholars.
After much debate among the membership of the Royal Society of London, Cavendish became the first woman invited to visit the prestigious institution, although the controversy had more to due with her notoriety than with her sex. On May 30, 1667, Cavendish arrived with a large retinue of attendants and watched as Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke weighed air, dissolved mutton in sulfuric acid, and conducted various other experiments. It was a major advance for the scientific lady and a personal triumph for Cavendish.
Cavendish published the final revision of her Philosophical and Physical Opinions, entitled Grounds of Natural Philosophy, in 1668. Significantly more modest than her previous works, in this volume Cavendish presented her views somewhat tentatively and retracted some of her earlier, more extravagant claims. Cavendish acted as her own physician, and her self-inflicted prescriptions, purgings, and bleedings resulted in the rapid deterioration of her health. She died in 1673 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Although her writings remained well outside the mainstream of seventeenth-century science, Cavendish's efforts were of major significance. She helped to popularize many of the ideas of the scientific revolution and she was one of the first natural philosophers to argue that theology was outside the parameters of scientific inquiry. Furthermore, her work and her prominence as England's first recognized woman scientist argued strongly for the education of women and for their involvement in scientific pursuits. In addition to her scientific writings, Cavendish published a book of speeches, a volume of poetry, and a large number of plays. Several of the latter, particularly The Female Academy, included learned women and arguments in favor of female education. Her most enduring work, a biography of her husband, included as an appendix to her 24 page memoir, was first published in 1656 as a part of Nature's Pictures. This memoir is regarded as the first major secular autobiography written by a woman.

Books

Alic, Margaret, Hypatia's Heritage: A History of Women in Science from Antiquity through the Nineteenth Century, Beacon Press, 1986.
Battigelli, Anna, Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind, University Press of Kentucky, 1998.
Grant, Douglas, Margaret the First: A Biography of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, 1623-1673, University of Toronto Press, 1957.
Kargon, Robert Hugh, Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton, Clarendon, 1966.
Meyer, Gerald Dennis, The Scientific Lady in England 1650-1760: An Account of her Rise, with emphasis on the Major Roles of the Telescope and Microscope, University of California Press, 1955.
Schiebinger, Londa, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science, Harvard University Press, 1989.

PIERRE GASSENDI
One of the big influences on Margaret Cavendish's thinking was the Epicurean atomism of Pierre Gassendi.  Here is the link to the Stanford Encylcopedia entry on Gassendi as well as the intro section from it:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gassendi/
Pierre Gassendi (b. 1592, d. 1655) was a French philosopher, scientific chronicler, observer, and experimentalist, scholar of ancient texts and debates, and active participant in contemporary deliberations of the first half of the seventeenth century. His significance in early modern thought has in recent years been rediscovered and explored, towards a better understanding of the dawn of modern empiricism, the mechanical philosophy, and relations of modern philosophy to ancient and medieval discussions. While Gassendi is perhaps best known in history of philosophy for his disputes with Descartes, his relations with other major figures, including Kepler, Galileo, Mersenne, Beeckman, and Hobbes, represented even more important transactions of ideas. And while Gassendi also sought to communicate anew the ideas of Epicurus, the Stoics, and other earlier thinkers, his resulting amalgam of perspectives provides a modern view of his own making, one of the touchstones of philosophy and science in his times: our access to knowledge of the natural world is dependent on the constraints and licenses that follow from our epistemic grasp being limited to information provided by senses. Through this arch-empiricism—tempered by his priestly adherence to key elements of Church doctrine—Gassendi views metaphysics as a realm for speculation grounded in the possibility of empirical confirmation, logic as (by turns) a psychologistic and probabilistic enterprise, knowledge of the external world as built on and forever subject to sensory-based evidence, and ethics in quasi-hedonist, possibly quantifiable terms. Gassendi's philosophy is a constant review of other sources, a thorough consideration of the landscape into which his own empiricism fits and represents an alternative to contrasting claims, past and present. What is sometimes thought of as eclecticism—particularly in the posthumous masterwork, the Syntagma Philosophicum—actually recasts philosophy as a fully-referenced scholarly enterprise, advancing historical styles and rhetorical modes in philosophical research and exposition. In these changes he matches even the magnitude of innovation that marks his atomist matter theory, empiricist perspectives, explorations and defenses of the new physics, objections to the Meditations, and refutations of contemporary Aristotelians and mystical thinkers. It has been argued—perhaps unfairly—that Gassendi's core ideas are better preserved through the medium of writings by Boyle, Locke, Huygens, and Newton. Yet his presentation of an empiricism, atomism, and new cosmology in historical and philosophical context greatly advanced the community of scholarship in his day, and represents what was then a fairly new model of research and exposition—still in philosophical use today.

THE ROYAL SOCIETY
The following link to Jack Lynch's online edition of selections from the Royal Society gives you a sense right away of the rejection of syllogistic reasoning in favor of empirical methodology as well as emphasis on mathematical style in language (a masculine discourse that was opposed to chaotic feminine elements of pleasure):
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/sprat.html

Some questions for discussion from Nancy, who is presenting:

 1. The Blazing World has been said to "border on schizophrenia." What is your reaction to that statement?

2. How could a "rhetoric of loss" help us understand this work?

3. What are the components of Cavendish's Utopia?

Bibliographical materials reviewed:

Holmesland, Oddvar, 'Margaret Cavendish's Blazing World:  Natural Art and the Body Politic', Studies in Philology 96: 457-79, 1999.
http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.gsu.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=13c5f511-c71c-4f3a-b746-90f987db3228%40sessionmgr111&vid=4&hid=23

In his article entitled “Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World: Natural Art and Body Politic” Oddvar Holmesland  takes “a sympathetic view” of Cavendish and her self labeled “ambition.” He seeks to reconcile Cavendish’s contradictory inclinations to portray both an “aristocratic ideology” as well as “a new order where women’s true potential is valued” (Holmesland, 458). Holmesland begins with a review of  criticism aimed at  Cavendish on mostly feminist grounds.  He mentions Lisa T. Sarasohn, who writes that Cavendish “defended the superiority of monarchy and hierarchy, reflecting class rather than gender solidarity” and Susan Wiseman who states that Cavendish “mounted only limited challenges to gender hierarchy.” Holmesland also mentions Janet Todd who suggests that “the Duchess’s immense egoism puffs out any incipient feminist feeling.” Holmesland’s more sympathetic interpretation of Cavendish makes claims that the reader could interpret Cavendish’s wish ‘not only to be Empress, but Authoress of a whole world’... in a ‘poetical’ sense. He centers Cavendish’s achievement  in her creation of an “epistemological space” brought about by  her “artistic vision” (458). Holmesland writes, that Cavendish, “In her artistic vision... explores a more natural Restoration world, expanded and complemented through the individual creative imagination” (459). He finds that The Blazing World offers a dialectic “between an aristocratically conceived natural order and the desire for emulation and singularity’ (459). This notion of singularity is crucial to Holmesland. He finds that there is a transition  “from the ‘ideology of absolute monarchy’ to that of ‘absolute self” (460).

Holmesland states  that critics have noted a dialectic, but “not on the premise of nature” (459). He believes that she seeks to present a “naturalizing” method where “the notion of self becomes relative through references to the motion of nature thought to permeate all individuals, like all matter” (464).  He finds that her “idea of singularity seems closely linked to attaining the privilege of a natural artistic freedom” (460). He states, then, that it would be “reductive” to consider her perspective “solipsistic” (460). From his readings in her Observations,” Holmesland finds  that Cavendish was fascinated with matter and motion - “with self motion being the basic process in a naturally ordered universe“”(463). He believes that she represents “civic humanism” which “treats human affairs, political and economic, in accordance with a presumed law of the universe” (463).  He also finds that her “poetical description” is a means of transcending the limits of empirical observation. He writes that Cavendish uses the imagination, the free mind, as “analogies to nature’s free motion.” (469)  In this way, Cavendish “creates a complex blend of theological, romantic, fantastic, scientifically experimental, and philosophically speculative ode -a kind of “hybridization” (470.) He notes  from her “Observations” that “Art produces Hermaphroditical effects, that is, such are partly Natural, and partly Artificial” (470). Holmesland finds Cavendish expressing that: “poetic freedom allows individuals the opportunity of hybridized self-creation” (475) and that she presents “poetic freedom as a starting point for restoring natural relations among people” (475). Her expression of hermaphrodite space allows the simultaneous consideration of more than one point of view. He believes  that Cavendish creates her own Cabbala where she fashions contradictory elements into a world “of peace and tranquility” (475).

Holmesland writes  that it is “too confining...to sum up The Blazing World as the imaginary voyage of an imperialistic self. Rather, the imperialist vision- the image of the expanded self- also makes a widening artistic and epistemological space” (478). In this epistemological space, Cavendish is then free to explore contradictory ideas concurrently, making The Blazing World a place of freedom  --what one might term an “epistemological community.” Although Holmesland frees Cavendish by placing her artistic aims as beyond the scope of everyday politics and gender issues, positing her strength in the creation of free artistic space, Cavendish, in The Blazing World, still presents readers with a complex work that yields more questions than answers, which may be the point. Cavendish explores and reveals the concerns and anxieties not only of herself as an individual but her society as a whole. Her concept of herself as an individual sits uneasily alongside her concept and support of a national identity. Holmesland gives us some tools to take a look at this hermaphroditic creation.

  (Reviewer, Nancy)