Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-dvmhs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-17T00:22:31.126Z Has data issue: true hasContentIssue false

Worlds and Eyeglasses: Cavendish’s Blazing World in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Black Dossier

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2024

Chloe Armstrong*
Affiliation:
Lawrence University, Department of Philosophy, Appleton, WI, USA

Abstract

I examine Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s adaptation of Margaret Cavendish’s Blazing World in the comic series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I interpret philosophical aspects of Cavendish’s fictional landscape, including her vitalist materialism and naturalized talking animals, as they appear in series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, rendered through 3-D images and corresponding 3-D glasses worn by readers. Through this world adaptation, Moore and O’Neill onboard themes of naturalness, experimentation, technology-aided perceptual processes, and travel to intersecting worlds to enhance The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’s commentary on the formative influence of fiction on authors and audiences.

Type
Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Inc

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amacker, K. (2012). An Interview with Alan Moore by Kurt Amacker. Seraphemera Books, 13 March 2012.Google Scholar
Anstey, P. R., & Vanzo, A. (2016). Early modern experimental philosophy. In Sytsma, J. & Buckwalter, W. (Eds.), A companion to experimental philosophy (pp. 87102). Blackwell.Google Scholar
Blake, L. (2022). How many parts does Margaret Cavendish’ Blazing World have? In Walters, L. & Siegfried, B. R. (Eds.), Margaret Cavendish: An interdisciplinary perspective. Cambridge University Press. 233–47.Google Scholar
Brataas, D. B. (2015). Shakespeare’s presence and Cavendish’s absence in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Shakespeare, 11(1), 3957. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450918.2015.1012553Google Scholar
Cavendish, M. (1663). Philosophical and physical opinions. Printed for J. Martin and J. Allestrye at the Bell in St. Pauls Church-Yard. https://cavendish-ppo.ku.edu/texts/philosophical-and-physical-opinions/Google Scholar
Cavendish, M. (2001). Observations upon experimental philosophy (O’Neill, E., Ed.). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cavendish, M. (2016). The description of a new world called the Blazing World (Mendelson, S. H., Ed.). Broadview Press.Google Scholar
Cavendish, M. (2019). Margaret Cavendish’s poems and fancies: A digital critical edition (Blake, Liza, Ed.). http://library2.utm.utoronto.ca/poemsandfancies/Google Scholar
Chao, T. (2009). Contemplation on the “World of My Own Creating”: Alchemical discourses on nature and creation in the Blazing World (1666). NTU Studies in Language and Literature 22, 5776.Google Scholar
Clucas, S. (2022). Margaret Cavendish and the rhetoric and aesthetics of the microscopic image in seventeenth-century England. In Walters, L. & Siegfried, B. R. (Eds.), Margaret Cavendish: An interdisciplinary perspective (pp. 5168). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cowling, S., & Cray, W. (2022). Philosophy of comics: An introduction. Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Cunning, D. (2006). Cavendish on the intelligibility of the prospect of thinking matter. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 23(2), 117136.Google Scholar
Cunning, D. (2018). Margaret Cavendish on the metaphysics of imagination and the dramatic force of the imaginary world. In Thomas, E. (Ed.), Early modern women on metaphysics (pp. 188210). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Descartes, R. (1984). The philosophical writings of Descartes (v. I, II: Cottingham, J., Stoothoff, R., & Murdoch, D., and v. III Cottingham, J., Stoothoff, R., Murdoch, D., & Kenny, A., Trans.). Cambridge University Press, 1984, 1985, 1991.Google Scholar
Detlefsen, K. (2007). Reason and freedom: Margaret Cavendish on the order and disorder of nature. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 89(2), 157191.Google Scholar
Detlefsen, K. (2009). Margaret Cavendish on the relation between God and world. Philosophy Compass, 4(3), 421438.Google Scholar
Detlefsen, K. (2018). Margaret Cavendish on laws and order. In Thomas, E. (Ed.), Early modern women on metaphysics, religion, and science. Cambridge University Press, 7292.Google Scholar
Freeman, J. (2017). Creating comics: A turn of the millennium interview with Alan Moore, part one. Original interview with Daniel Whiston. https://downthetubes.net/creating-comics-a-turn-of-the-millennium-interview-with-alan-moore-part-one/Google Scholar
Georgescu, L. (2021). Self-knowledge, perception, and Margaret Cavendish’s metaphysics of the individual. Early Science and Medicine, 25(6), 618639.Google Scholar
Harold, J. (2018). The value of fidelity in adaptation. British Journal of Aesthetics, 58(1), 89100.Google Scholar
Hatfield, G. (2008). Animals. In Broughton, Janet and Carriero, John (Eds.) A companion to Descartes. Blackwell, 404425.Google Scholar
Hetherington, N. S. (1979). The Hevelius–Auzout controversy. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 27(1), 103106.Google Scholar
Hutton, S. (2003). Science and satire: The Lucianic voice of Margaret Cavendish’s Description of a New World Called the Blazing World. In Cottignies, L. & Weitz, N. (Eds.), Authorial conquests, essays on genre in the writings of Margaret Cavendish (pp. 161178). Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.Google Scholar
James, S. (1999). The philosophical innovations of Margaret Cavendish. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 7(2), 219244.Google Scholar
James, S. (2018). ‘Hermaphroditical mixtures’: Margaret Cavendish on nature and art. In Thomas, E. (Ed.), Early modern women on metaphysics, religion, and science. Cambridge University Press, 3148.Google Scholar
Keller, E. (1997). Producing petty gods: Margaret Cavendish’s critique of experimental science. ELH, 64(2), 447471.Google Scholar
Khanna, L. C. (1994). The subject of Utopia: Margaret Cavendish and her Blazing World. In Donawerth, J. L. and Komerten, C. A. (Eds.), Utopian and science fiction by women: Worlds of difference (1535). Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Khoury, G. (2003). The extraordinary works of Alan Moore. TwoMorrows Publishing.Google Scholar
Lascano, M. P. (2020). Margaret Cavendish and Early Modern Scientific Experimentalism: ‘Boys that play with watery bubbles or fling dust into each other’s eyes, or make a hobbyhorse of snow’. In Crasnow, S. and Intemann, K. (Eds.), Routledge handbook of feminist philosophy of science (2840). Routledge.Google Scholar
Lascano, M. P. (2023). The metaphysics of Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway: Monism, vitalism, and self-motion. OUP.Google Scholar
Lawson, I. (2016). Crafting the microworld: How Robert Hooke constructed knowledge about small things. Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, 70, 2344.Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W (1981). New essays on human understanding (Remnant, P. & Bennett, J., Trans.). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Leslie, M. (2012). Mind the map: Fancy, matter, and world construction in Margaret Cavendish’s “Blazing World”. Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme, 35(1), 85112.Google Scholar
Livingston, P. (2010). On the appreciation of cinematic adaptations. Projections, 4(2), 104127.Google Scholar
Locke, J. (1975). An essay concerning human understanding (Nidditch, P. H., Ed.). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Malcolmson, C. (2013). Studies of Skin Color in the Early Royal Society, Boyle, Cavendish, Swift. Routledge: London.Google Scholar
Moore, A., & O’Neill, K. (2000). The league of extraordinary gentlemen (Vol. I). America’s Best Comics/WildStorm.Google Scholar
Moore, A., & O’Neill, K. (2003). The league of extraordinary gentlemen (Vol. II). America’s Best Comics/WildStorm.Google Scholar
Moore, A., & O’Neill, K. (2007). The league of extraordinary gentlemen: Black Dossier. America’s Best Comics/WildStorm.Google Scholar
Moore, A., & O’Neill, K. (2009). The league of extraordinary gentlemen (Vol. III: Century). Top Shelf Productions/Knockabout Comics.Google Scholar
Nevins, J. (2003). Heroes and monsters. The unofficial companion to the league of extraordinary gentlemen. MonkeyBrain.Google Scholar
Nevins, J. (2004). A Blazing World: The unofficial companion to the league of extraordinary gentlemen (Vol. 2). MonkeyBrain.Google Scholar
Peterman, A. (2019). Margaret Cavendish on motion and mereology. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 57(3), 471499.Google Scholar
Pratt, H. (2012). Making comics into film. In Meskin, A. & Cooks, R. T. (Eds.), The art of comics: A philosophical approach (pp. 147164). Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sarasohn, L. T. (1984). A science turned upside down: Feminism and the natural philosophy of Margaret Cavendish. Huntington Library Quarterly, 47(1984), 289307.Google Scholar
Sarasohn, L. T. (2003). Leviathan and the lady: Cavendish’s critique of Hobbes in the philosophical letters. In Cottignies, L. & Weitz, N. (Eds.), Authorial conquests, essays on genre in the writings of Margaret Cavendish (pp. 4058). Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.Google Scholar
Sarasohn, L. T. (2010). The natural philosophy of Margaret Cavendish: Reason and fancy during the scientific revolution. The Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Shaheen, J. (2022). A vitalist shoal in the mechanist tide: Art, nature, and 17th-century science. Philosophies, 7(5), 111.Google Scholar
Tantimedh, A. (2007). Alan Moore: Inside “The Black Dossier”. CBR. https://www.cbr.com/alan-moore-inside-the-black-dossier/Google Scholar
Tantimedh, A. (2009). Alan Moore’s bestiary of fictional worlds. CBR. https://www.cbr.com/alan-moores-bestiary-of-fictional-worlds/Google Scholar
Tucker, E. (2024). The other Descartes: Spinoza’s Cartesian naturalism. In Marrama, O. and Lahteenmäki, V. (Eds.), Non-Cartesian philosophies of mind. Routledge.Google Scholar
Walters, L. (2009). Gender subversion in the science of Margaret Cavendish. In Mendelsohn, S. H. (Ed.), Ashgate critical studies on women writers in England 1550–1700: Margaret Cavendish. Ashgate Press, 251262.Google Scholar
Whitaker, K. (2003). Mad Madge: The extraordinary life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, the first woman to live by her pen. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Wilkins, E. (2014). Margaret Cavendish and the royal society. Notes and Records. The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, 68. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2014.001Google Scholar
Zone, R. (2013). The 3-D-T’s: The rise and fall of the 1950s 3-D comic books. Alter Ego, 3(115), 352.Google Scholar