'Perswade us out of our selves': Margaret Cavendish's regulation of rhetoric. Issue 3 (27th May 2018)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- 'Perswade us out of our selves': Margaret Cavendish's regulation of rhetoric. Issue 3 (27th May 2018)
- Main Title:
- 'Perswade us out of our selves': Margaret Cavendish's regulation of rhetoric
- Authors:
- Black, Andrew
- Abstract:
- ABSTRACT: In works like The World's Olio, Sociable Letters and Orations of a Divers Sort, Margaret Cavendish aspires to a rhetorical tradition from which she, as a woman, is excluded. However, Cavendish's aspirations are tempered by her anxiety toward rhetoric and its masculine histories, legacies and protocols, which poses a threat to Cavendish's insistent self-fashioning as "Margaret the First", an autonomous figure characterized by an eccentric defiance. Particularly in her Observations Upon Experimental Philosophy to which is Added the Description of a New Blazing World, Cavendish presents fantasies of containment and regulation, in which masculine voices are corrected and silenced by an authoritative female voice. Rooted in emerging theories of political and epistemological unification, Cavendish's gestures toward difference is tempered by a fear of political instability and a more anxious possibility that it might "perswade [her] out of [herself]". Cavendish constructs the autonomous and safeguarded space where she can best protect herself from that powerful threat of language. The symbolic exclusions and relocations of rhetoric allow Cavendish both to imagine and protect her exceptionalism.
- Is Part Of:
- Seventeenth century. Volume 33:Issue 3(2018)
- Journal:
- Seventeenth century
- Issue:
- Volume 33:Issue 3(2018)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 33, Issue 3 (2018)
- Year:
- 2018
- Volume:
- 33
- Issue:
- 3
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2018-0033-0003-0000
- Page Start:
- 303
- Page End:
- 322
- Publication Date:
- 2018-05-27
- Subjects:
- Margaret Cavendish -- rhetoric -- experimental philosophy -- restoration -- sovereignty
Seventeenth century -- Periodicals
History, Modern -- 17th century -- Periodicals
909.605 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsev20 ↗
http://www.tandfonline.com/ ↗
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/manup/tsc ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1080/0268117X.2017.1339247 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0268-117X
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 8253.947900
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 6766.xml