Margaret Cavendish : gender, genre, exile / Emma L.E. Rees.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rees, Emma L. E.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of, 1624?-1674--Criticism and interpretation.

Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish.

Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of, 1624?-1674.

Women and literature--England--History--17th century.

Women and literature.

British.

History.

Criticism and interpretation.

England.

Women and literature--Europe--History--17th century.

British--Europe--History--17th century.

Literary form--History--17th century.

Literary form.

Sex role in literature.

Exiles in literature.

Europe.

Physical Description:

vi, 218 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Manchester, UK ; New York : Manchester University Press : Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 2003.

Summary:

Margaret Cavendish was one of the most prolific, complex and misunderstood writers of the seventeenth century. A contemporary of Descartes and Hobbes, she was fascinated by philosophical, scientific and imaginative advances, and struggled to overcome the political and cultural obstacles which threatened to stop her engagement with such discourses. The result of this struggle is a body of work of twenty-two opulent editions, some of which were extraordinary not only because they were penned by a woman, but because they were published in the 1650s when Cavendish and her husband were in exile on the continent. Persona non grata, Cavendish nonetheless managed to make her voice heard. Quite what that voice was saying becomes more evident in Emma Rees' study where literary genre is seen to be the key to an understanding of it. Emma Rees examines how Cavendish engaged with the work of thinkers such as Lucretius, Plato, Homer and Harvey in an attempt to write her way out of the exile which threatened not only her intellectual pursuits but her very existence. What emerges is the image of an intelligent, audacious and intrepid early-modern woman whose tale will appeal to specialists and general readers alike.

Contents:

Introduction: a glorious resurrection 1

1 The 1650s: genre and exile 24

2 'Sweet Honey of the Muses': Lucretian resonance in Poems, and Fancies 54

3 Heavens Library: Platonic paradigms and trial by genre 80

4 Travellia's travails: Homeric motifs in Assaulted and Pursued Chastity 104

5 Figures of speech: The Animall Parliament 134

6 Fictions of the mind 164

Conclusion: rehabilitations 186

Appendix 'A horrible precipice': Lucy Hutchinson's Lucretius 190.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-213) and index.

ISBN:

0719060729

OCLC:

53029821