Volume 1, number 1
Spring 1997
From Nancy W. Miller, President of the Society:
"Tis true, the World may wonder at my Confidence, how dare I put out a Book, especially in these censorious times; but why not please myself in the satisfaction of innocent desires? for a smile of neglect cannot dishearten me, no more can a Frowne of dislike affright me; not but I should be well pleased, and delight to have my Book commended." -- MC, Poems and Fancies, WWP transcription, vii.
How well pleased would Margaret Cavendish be to know that nearly 350 years after she wrote Poems and Fancies the "World" would be busy rediscovering her books as objects worthy of study and helping to build her coveted "Pyramid of Fame." A few short months ago, we formed the Margaret Cavendish Society in order to provide a vital forum for communication among those involved in Cavendish and related scholarship through the email discussion list MarCav, a yearly conference and meeting, and an Internet website, which is currently under construction. In addition, we've begun to talk about a number of possible projects, such as on-line editions of hard-to-access Cavendish texts. In the coming year, we'll be nurturing the infant Society towards a more mature stage of growth; this will require some unavoidable bureaucratic changes, notably the collection of (modest) dues from members, which will help make future conferences, meetings, projects, and mailings possible. Please join us, if you haven't already.
Welcome! Want to know what's happening in Cavendish Studies?
Join the MarCav-L discussion list. This lively and supportive discussion addresses all aspects of Margaret Cavendish's life and work. The list is also an important source of information about upcoming conferences and new publications in the field. To subscribe, email the listserver: [email protected]. Leave the Subject field blank. Type only the message: SUBSCRIBE MARCAV-L.
First International Conference & Annual General Meeting of the Margaret Cavendish Society.
Oxford University will host this first MCS conference Saturday & Sunday, 28-29 June 1997 at Oxford University. Papers will address MC's plays, letters, poems and philosophical works in connection with the political, scientific, professional, artistic, and familial contexts in which Cavendish wrote. For more information, contact Shirley Stacey, Hertford College, Oxford University, Oxford OX1 3BW, England. Email: [email protected]
Margaret Cavendish in Print. Looking for editions of Cavendish to use in the classroom? The Brown University Women Writers Project offers the following Cavendish texts in hard copy for a very reasonable price:
- The Description of a New World, called the Blazing World
- The Comical Hash
- Matrimonial Trouble: A Comedy
- Poems and Fancies
- The World's Olio
The WWP will even produce customized anthologies to your specifications including title page and table of contents: For pricing and information, visit the WWP webpage: https://www.wwp.brown.edu.
Forthcoming Cavendish editions:
- Sociable Letters (1664). Ed. James Fitzmaurice. Garland Press. Late 1996.
- Four Plays. Ed. Anne Shaver. (Loves Adventures, Bell in Campo, The Bridals, Convent of Pleasure)
New and Noteworthy Titles:
- Anna Battigelli. "Between the Glass and the Hand: The Eye in Margaret Cavendish's Blazing World." 1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era 2 (1996): 25-38.
- Stephen Clucas. "The Atomism of the Cavendish Circle: A Reappraisal." The Seventeenth Century 9.2 (1994): 247-73. Clucas is currently editing a collection of essays on MC provisionally titled, A Princely Brave Woman: Collected Essays on Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle.
- Major Women Writers of Seventeenth-Century England. Eds. James Fitzmaurice, Jo Roberts, Gene Cunnar, Nancy Gutierrez, and Carol Barash. U Michigan P. This anthology contains selections from Lanyer, Cary, Wroth, Cavendish, Philips, Behn, and the Swetnam controversialists. The MC selection consists of 20 of the Sociable Letters.
- Jeffrey Masten. Textual Intercourse: Collaboration, Authorship, and Sexualities in Renaissance Drama. Cambridge UP, 1997. The book concludes with a discussion of MC's publication of plays in folio collections (1662 and 1668), read in the context of male-authored folio collections of drama earlier in the 17th century.
- Rebecca Merrens. "A Nature of 'Infinite Sense and Reason': Margaret Cavendish's Natural Philosophy and the 'Noise' of a Feminized Nature." Women's Studies 25.5 (1996). This essay explores MC's natural philosophy not as mere "fancy," as it often is read, but as serious science which posits an alternative conception of nature to that argued for by Boyle, in particular.
- John Rogers. "Margaret Cavendish and the Gendering of the Vitalist Utopia." The Matter of Revolution: Science, Poetry, and Politics in the Age of Milton. (Cornell UP, 1996), 177-211. This essay explores the ideological origins and consequences of MC's intellectual conversion in 1663 from the mechanistic science affirmed by the Royal Society to the outmoded vitalism associated with the egalitarian politics of the radical sects.
- Laura Rosenthal. Playwrights and Plagiarists in Early Modern England: Gender, Authorship, Literary Property. Cornell UP, 1996. This book about playwrights who were accused of plagiarism in the late 17th and early 18th centuries has a chapter on MC.
Teaching Materials Archive:
Please submit assignments, class activities, research projects -- anything you have used in teaching MC's work. Send contributions to Prof. Brandie Seigfried, English Dept., 3169 JKHB, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 84602. Email: [email protected]
Margaret Cavendish Society Board:
President: Nancy W. Miller
Vice President: Brandie Siegfried
Secretary: Cecile Jagodzinski
Treasurer: Carol Breakstone
U.K. Liaison: Shirley Stacey
List Manager: Jim Fitzmaurice
Webmaster: Lisa Blansett
Newsletter: Deborah Burks
Members-at-Large: Anna Battigelli, Sophia Blaydes, Elizabeth Hageman, Rebecca Merrens, John Norman, Emma Rees, John Rogers, Anne Shaver, Gweno Williams, Susanne Woods
To join the Margaret Cavendish Society, contact
Cecile M. Jagodzinski, MCS Secretary, Illinois State University, Milner Library, Campus Box 8900, Normal, IL 61790-8900. Just send a message with your name, address, institutional affiliation, phone/fax numbers, and email address.