Banner photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash<\/em><\/p>\n Categorizing Margaret Cavendish\u2019s thought is no easy task. Cavendish developed her philosophical system over time, but she produced a mountain of other literary works, from poems to plays and from science fiction to biography. Recognizing the breadth of Cavendish\u2019s works, editors Walters and Siegfried assembled scholars from a range of disciplines to address the following themes: history of science, philosophy, literature, politics, and new directions. Since Margaret Cavendish<\/i> is an anthology that treats different yet interconnected parts of her thought, this review highlights only some of the many contributions that the volume makes.<\/p>\n The chapter \u201cMargaret Cavendish: Natural Philosopher and Feminist\u201d by Carolyn Merchant begins the section on history of science. Merchant situates Cavendish\u2019s forays into natural philosophy within a broader group of women contemporaries who contributed to this area. Lisa Sarasohn\u2019s chapter \u201cMargaret Cavendish Thinks about Sex\u201d traces how Cavendish\u2019s metaphysics provides space for anti-essentialist understanding of sex and gender and provides her with resources for thinking of these as continuous categories. As Sarasohn highlights, Cavendish\u2019s views on sex and gender range from sometimes seeming <\/i>to parrot views sympathetic to Galenic-Aristotelian accounts but then at other times emphasizing that there is infinite<\/i> variety in nature. Sarasohn emphasizes that identity is an ambiguous notion for Cavendish, as illustrated with the case of Lady Happy in \u201cThe Convent of Pleasure\u201d (pp. 48-49).<\/p>\n In \u201cMargaret Cavendish and the Rhetoric and Aesthetics of the Microscopic Image in Seventeenth-Century England,\u201d Stephen Clucas examines Cavendish\u2019s criticisms of Hooke\u2019s use of images. Clucas focuses on Hooke\u2019s arguments that microscopic observations revealed true natures of natural objects by claiming that the microscope corrected deficiencies in the senses following the biblical fall. Similarly, Henry Power tried to bolster the use of images by emphasizing the beauty he claimed was revealed by them. Clucas situates Cavendish\u2019s criticisms of these attempts by focusing on the unnaturalness of using the microscope\u2014it failed to show internal motions of objects\u2014and her claims that the instrument provides pictures of monstrosities (p. 61).<\/p>\n The section on philosophy opens with Jacqueline Broad and Maks Sipowicz\u2019s chapter, \u201cCavendish\u2019s Philosophy of the Passions,\u201d which aims to provide a systematic account of Cavendish\u2019s understanding of the passions. Taking Cavendish\u2019s version of Neo-Stoic causality as their starting point, Broad and Sipowicz convincingly argue that Cavendish\u2019s view of the passions was a genuine alternative to the Cartesian view. Rather than viewing passions as passive, Cavendish held that although external things are frequently antecedent causes for passions, they are merely the occasion for self-moving matter to act on its own. The picture of Cavendishian passions that emerges is a contrast with the Cartesian view: passions are entirely free actions (pp. 87\u201389) and are active rather than passive (p. 91). Not only does this chapter unearth a uniquely Cavendishian account of the passions, but it challenges a narrative told in the history of philosophy that with David Hume the passions were transformed from that which is to be suppressed to that which is a guide.<\/p>\n In \u201cCavendish\u2019s Philosophical Genres in Philosophical and Physical Opinions<\/i> and the Question of Hierarchy,\u201d Karen Detlefsen addresses hierarchy generally, and related to gender in particular, by focusing on Cavendish\u2019s ontology of matter. Detlefsen locates a potential source for hierarchy in natural philosophy within Cavendish\u2019s account of differences among nature\u2019s parts; although all parts are composed of matter, they are differentiated from one another by their different shapes and proportion of rational matter (pp. 117\u2013119). Nevertheless, Cavendish seems to hold that differences among the parts of nature do not necessarily imply differences in their abilities or worth. Finding this tension in Cavendish\u2019s main works, Detlefsen considers whether the prefaces of those works might shed light on Cavendish\u2019s view.<\/p>\n Part 3, on Literature, begins with Brandie R. Siegfried\u2019s chapter, \u201cOf Webs and Wonder: The Atomic Vitalism of Margaret Cavendish\u2019s Poems and Fancies<\/i>,\u201d which starts by noting Cavendish\u2019s own insistence that her poetry was essential for understanding her natural philosophy. Siegfried identifies fancy as a vehicle for entertaining speculative philosophical thoughts in a more pleasurable mode. Cavendish, as Siegfried shows, understands fancy as a way for women to engage in reasoning, one that resists strict rule and method but instead proceeds \u201cby choice\u201d (pp. 133\u2013134), akin to the multiple routes one can take in stitching or needlework. Instead of seeing philosophy as consisting only of method in a Cartesian framework, there are many ways to approach nature.<\/p>\n \u201cMargaret Cavendish\u2019s Prudence; or, Preservation and Transformation in Playes <\/i>(1662) and Plays, Never Before Printed<\/i> (1668)\u201d by Lara Dodds examines how Cavendish re-used \/ configured material written before the Restoration in later works. Cavendish recognized that her plays would be criticized not only because she was a female author but also because they did not meet expectations, such as those regarding coordinated movements of actors (pp. 160\u2013161). Dodd suggests that we understand Lady Prudence in Playes<\/i> (1662) as exhibiting Aristotelian phronesis<\/i> in rejecting various suitors and accepting a less than likely one, one whose external appearance belied his inner worth. Furthermore, Dodds sees prudence as part of Cavendish\u2019s own identification of her actions; for example, she prudently publishes her work so her ideas can be read. While some of the characterizations of prudence mentioned seem like instances of phronesis<\/i>, it is not obvious we need to see it as behind all of them (e.g., Cavendish\u2019s description of keeping copies of her plays lest they be lost at sea like a set of them were after a shipwreck [pp. 168-169]). Sometimes Cavendishian \u201cprudence\u201d seems less than phronesis<\/i> and more akin to the kind of prudence that her contemporary Hobbes identified as mere prediction of some future event based upon associations formed by past experiences.<\/p>\n Part 4 examines Cavendish\u2019s politics. Mihoko Suzuki traces the theme of Cavendish\u2019s experiences during the wars and her implied criticisms of Charles I in Natures Pictures,<\/i> Hilda L. Smith treats the Orations<\/i> and shows Cavendish\u2019s concerns about power and gender, among others, and Joanne H. Wright argues that Sociable Letter<\/i> #16 should be understood as showing anti-royalist tendencies. The final section of the book\u2014Part 5, on \u201cNew Directions\u201d\u2014looks ahead to possible futures for Cavendish studies. Liza Blake examines the seemingly disconnected parts of Blazing World<\/i>, something Cavendish herself mused about, by looking to the collation formula for the 1666 edition (alongside Observations<\/i>) and other printing details. These text-critical details suggest that the structure of the printed edition differed from the originally intended one. Sarah Connell looks to Cavendish\u2019s aim of \u201csingularity\u201d by subjecting her works to a digital analysis where Cavendish\u2019s works were compared to others by looking at features like the structures of the texts and representations of female characters.<\/p>\n In sum, Margaret Cavendish<\/i> fulfills its promise of tackling Cavendish in a truly impressive and interdisciplinary way. The editors are to be commended for this volume (note: editor Siegfried passed away before the book went to press). This review has touched only on some of the contributions that the volume makes; the book will serve well to drive future discussions of Cavendish\u2019s multifaceted thought for scholars and students alike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Review of Walters, Lisa, and Brandie R. Siegfried, eds. Margaret Cavendish: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. xvii + 307 pp. ISBN (hardback): 978-1-108-49036-8. By Marcus P. Adams, State University of New York at Albany Banner photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash Categorizing Margaret Cavendish\u2019s thought is no easy task. Cavendish developed her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16662,"featured_media":0,"parent":2582,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2563"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2565,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2563\/revisions\/2565"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/impact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}