Margaret Cavendish: Political WritingsCambridge University Press, 2003 M08 28 - 298 pages Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, published a wide variety of works including poems, plays, letters and treatises of natural philosophy, but her significance as a political writer has only recently been recognised. This major contribution to the series of Cambridge Texts includes the first ever modern edition of her Divers Orations on English social and political life, together with a new student-friendly rendition of her imaginary voyage, A New World called the Blazing World. Susan James explains the allusions made in this classic text, and directs readers to the many intellectual debates with which Cavendish engages. Together these two works reveal the character and scope of Margaret Cavendish's political thought. She emerges as a singular and probing writer, who simultaneously upholds a conservative social and political order and destabilises it through her critical and unresolved observations about natural philosophy, scientific institutions, religion, and the relations between men and women. |
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actions amongst beasts bird-men Blazing World body Bolsover Castle Cabbala Cabbalists cause Cavalier Parliament Charles Charles II civil command commonwealth creatures Dear Countrymen death delight Descartes desire discourse Divers Orations divine doth dreams Duchess of Newcastle Duchess's soul earth Emperor Empress asked endeavour enemies fame favour fear Fellow fight fish-men Fortune friends Funeral Oration Gods happy hath Heaven Hobbes honour husband immaterial judgement Kate Lilley king kingdom labour laws liberty live London magistrates Majesty Majesty's Margaret Cavendish mind monarch motion natural philosophy never Newcastle's Advice Noble Citizens Observations opinion pains paperback Paracelsans peace perceive persuade Philosophical Letters plead pleasure Political Writings edited poor Prince Privy Councillors punished replied the Empress Reverend Judges rich ruin sense and reason ships Sociable Letters soldiers sorts sovereign star-stone subjects Thomas Hobbes truth vanity wars wealth Welbeck Abbey wherefore William Cavendish wise women worm-men