Margaret Cavendish's Blazing Baroque World

Of all the women studied here, Margaret Cavendish, second Duchess of Newcastle, is at first sight the most obviously Baroque figure, not only in her writings but also in her personal ambitions and self-presentation. But it has also been argued that Cavendish may be seen specifically as a Baroque writer rather than merely demonstrating a Baroque personality. Her poems bear examples of what Canfield sees as characteristic ‘Metaphysical’ conceits – mixed metaphors that sound like parodies of Crashaw's blending of blood, ice, tears, and dust – and her prose works and plays feature recurring dramatic upsurges of ‘astonishing, bizarre Baroque’ twists of plot or situation. However, the Baroque tendencies in both her life and writings deserve a more serious analysis, as does her distinctive contribution to how we might analyse the Female Baroque, especially given her frequent, though contradictory, comments on women and women's writings.

Unfortunately, there is no modern standard edition of her voluminous writings: modern scholars must make do with a mix of original publications, often confusingly presented and falling far short of modern editorial standards, and a variety of miscellaneous selections by modern scholars and teachers, compiled with different goals (albeit near-indistinguishable titles), and inevitably, given the bulk of her writings, highly selective and rarely complementary. In my analysis, therefore, I have found it necessary to use a mixture of sources: modern editions where available, and ‘original’ versions, including a number of facsimile reprints, when necessary.