玛格丽特·卡文迪什1617—1673

Although many would credit author Mary Shelley as the inventor of science fiction, Margaret Cavendish can also be counted as an essential pioneer. Her book The Blazing World is one of the first to fall into the science fiction genre. As a well-connected natural philosopher, Cavendish engaged with some of the most influential minds of her time, including René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, and Henry More.

Background

Born Margaret Lucas to Sir Thomas Lucas (1573–1625) and Elizabeth Leighton (died 1647), she was the youngest child of the family. She had four sisters and three brothers, the royalists Sir John Lucas, Sir Thomas Lucas and Sir Charles Lucas, who owned the manor of St John's Abbey, Colchester. As a teenager, she became an attendant on Queen Henrietta Maria and travelled with her into exile in France, living for a time at the court of the young King Louis XIV. She became the second wife of William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1645.

Her husband, the marquess William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, was a Royalist commander in Northern England during the First English Civil War and in 1644 went into voluntary exile in France. Margaret accompanied him and remained abroad until the Stuart Restoration in 1660.

Early years

Childhood

Cavendish's father, Thomas Lucas, was exiled after a duel that led to the death of "one Mr. Brooks", but pardoned by King James. He returned to England in 1603. As the youngest of eight, Cavendish recorded spending a lot of time with her siblings. She had no formal education but had access to libraries and tutors, although she hinted that the children paid little heed to tutors, who were "rather for formality than benefit". Cavendish began putting ideas down on paper at an early age, although it was poorly accepted for women to display such intelligence at the time and she kept her efforts in the privacy of her home. The family had significant means and Cavendish stated that her widowed mother chose to keep her family in a condition "not much lower" than when her father was alive; the children had access to "honest pleasures and harmless delights". Her mother had little to no male help.

Personal life

Health

Cavendish stated in A True Relation of My Birth, Breeding, and Life that her bashful nature, which she described as "melancholia", made her "repent my going from home to see the World abroad." It manifested itself in reluctance to discuss her work in public, but this she satirised in her writing. Cavendish defined and sought self-cures for the physical manifestations of her melancholia, which included "chill paleness", inability to speak, and erratic gestures.

Religious beliefs

Cavendish's views on God and religion remained ambiguous. Her writings show her as a Christian, but she did not often address the matter. In her Physical Opinions, she explicitly stated her belief in the existence of God – "Pray account me not an Atheist, but believe as I do in God Almighty," – but sought to split philosophy from theology and so avoid debating God's actions in many of her philosophical works.

Her theological temerity was unusual at a time when much of women's writing was built around religion.

Major works

Poems and Fancies (1653)

Poems and Fancies encompasses poems, epistles and some prose on topics that include natural philosophy, atoms, nature personified, macro/microcosms, other worlds, death, battle, hunting, love, honour, and fame. Her poems, at times, take a dialogue form between such pairs as earth and darkness, an oak and a tree-cutter, melancholy and mirth, and peace and war. As noted by Mistress Toppe, formerly Elizabeth Chaplain and Cavendish's maid, Cavendish's writings took the form of poetical fiction, moral instruction, philosophical opinion, dialogue, discourses and poetical romances. Poems and Fancies included The Animal Parliament, a prose piece consisting largely of speeches and letters. The collection concludes with her thoughts on her writing and an advertisement for one of her future publications.

Authorial intent

Cavendish concluded the collection by stating she was aware that she did not write elegantly and that her phrasing and placement of words could be criticised.

Plays in 1662 and 1668

Two volumes of Cavendish's dramatic works were printed. Plays (1662), printed by A. Warren (London) includes:

• Loves Adventures
• The Several Wits
• Youths Glory, and Deaths Banquet
• The Lady Contemplation
• Wits Cabal
• The Unnatural Tragedy
• The Public Wooing
• The Matrimonial Trouble
• Nature's Three Daughters, Beauty, Love and Wit
• The Religious
• The Comical Hash
• Bell in Campo
• A Comedy of the Apocryphal Ladies
• The Female Academy
• Plays, Never Before Printed (1668) was published by Anne Maxwell (London):
• The Sociable Companions, or the Female Wits
• The Presence
• Scenes (edited from The Presence)
• The Bridals
• The Convent of Pleasure
• A Piece of a Play

Other works

Cavendish also published collections of Philosophical Letters (1664), orations, as in her collection entitled Orations (1662). Many of her works address such issues as natural philosophy, gender, power and manners. Cavendish's plays were never acted in her lifetime, but a number, including The Convent of Pleasure (1668) have been staged since. The Convent of Pleasure has recently become a staple of high school and university literature courses because of its feminism and Sapphic plot and character elements. Several of Cavendish's works have epistles, prefaces, prologues and epilogues in which she discusses her work, philosophy and ambition, while instructing the reader on how to read and respond to her writing. Her work has been alternately criticised and championed from its original publication to the present day.

Critical reception

Cavendish was an unorthodox and daring intellectual who received positive and negative commentary from her contemporaries. Negative comments can be found by the Royal Society member Samuel Pepys who once wrote of her as "a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman" though he was eager to read her work. Dorothy Osborne reflected in one published letter, after reading a book by the Duchess, that she was "sure there are soberer people in Bedlam." After receiving copies of her work on natural philosophy, Henry More wrote to Anne Conway that Cavendish "may be secure from anyone giving her the trouble of a reply." She also had numerous admirers, Constantijn Huygens, Mildmay Fane, Earl of Westmorland, John Dryden, Kenelm Digby were among them. Joseph Glanvill and Walter Charleton corresponded with her and engaged with philosophy and science. After her death, her husband William Cavendish compiled a book of admiring letters, poems, and epitaphs by numerous people.