Further to my previous post, here I'd like to share my podcast script for episode 4 of Season 13, which includes a selection of my research thoughts on Cavendish after attending the Cavendish on Literature conference last month.
For the reference bibliography of works cited in this episode, see the end of this blog post.
This episode is available to listen to on demand on Spotify 🔗 here
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Hello and welcome to Philosophy Fluency, Season 13, episode 4!
In last week's episode, I contextualised Robin Elizabeth Haas's paper¹ at the Cavendish on Literature conference that I attended last month at Southampton University by seeing it in relation to other scholarship in her chosen topics in her paper. Over ice cold coffees today during this heatwave in London, UK, I shall build on the exploration of whether the character of the Princess in Cavendish's play 'The Convent of Pleasure' is trans or not by extending my more descriptive discussion of my research last week to my analytical research analysis of the debate this week. This is still seasonal for LGBT+ Pride, despite Pride Month ending on Monday, because there's still plenty of Pride Parades to go, including the big London Pride Parade this Saturday.
I ended the last episode on Mary Ann Saunders's interpretation of Shakespeare's character of Ariel in The Tempest as being trans. How so? Well, briefly put, Ariel is referred to with masculine pronouns in the play, but nevertheless, three times within the play, Ariel changes into looking female.
To be more specific and nuanced about her scholarship, Saunders draws on her personal experiences as she specifically moulds her trans interpretation to the way Ariel was depicted in Julie Taymor's film version of Shakespeare's The Tempest, released in 2010². In her research within the field of Literature, Writing and Discourse, Saunders explores the question of the extent to which cisgender writers fall into, conscious and perhaps unconscious, cisgender bias and stereotyping³. Saunders was especially concerned about scholarly interpretations containing nasty, anti-trans bias when she read a paper which viciously described the film's visual depiction of Ariel as physically looking part male and part female as, and I quote: "grotesque", "monstrous", a "body horror" while wrongly and insultingly claiming that it's an "impossible" looking body, despite this reflecting many trans people's personal experiences of transitioning⁴. So, despite not being a Philosopher, Saunders began her stance by responding to arguments made within secondary literature on Shakespeare.
She also finds contemporary relevance to this. For instance, raising awareness of anti-trans stereotypes that depict transwomen as faking their womanhood to trick people into relationships they wouldn't consent to if they knew they were trans⁵. In the case of Ariel in The Tempest, the scene in question is when Prospero turns Ariel into presumably a female-presenting sea nymph in order to deceive and entice a Prince into desiring Ariel⁶.
Here we can see the potential parallel with some anti-trans readings of the Princess in Cavendish's 'The Convent of Pleasure' as essentially being a man tricking his way into the female-only space of the Convent to trick an unsuspecting lesbian into a sexual relationship and marriage with a biological cis man Prince merely masquerading as a biological cis woman Princess.
However, I think that Saunders has given herself more margin for error so she can keep her argument and scholarship easily plausible, defendable and contained by limiting the scope and focus of her initial trans reading of Ariel to a specific paper about a depiction in a specific film. That way, she can support her arguments as comprising of true, quite indisputable statements, for instance, that there's textual evidence that papers analysing the depiction of Ariel in that 2010 film can contain anti-trans stereotypes and bias that alienate trans people and ignore their trans experiences.
In contrast, I suggest that Robin Elizabeth Haas⁷ has set herself a much harder task by making more sweeping statements in her scholarship and by relying on the authenticity of the slips. I haven't yet made a detailed study of what assurances we have that these slips are beyond all doubt, definitely written by Margaret Cavendish.
But let's just indulge in exploring a few hypotheses for a moment, to put together some initial research questions, such as: Why would Margaret Cavendish need to attach corrections slips to books she, I believe, was self-publishing? She began self-publishing, albeit through a printer, from 1653, and The Convent of Pleasure, first appeared when she self-published her collection Plays Never Before Printed in 1668, using the female printer Anne Maxwell. So Cavendish presumably wouldn't need to add slips to correct a publisher or a sexist male printer because she was already using a woman's printing service for about the last two years.
Suppose Margaret Cavendish never instructed or wrote any paper slips? How could we establish whether any of the slips, all of them, or none of them, are fakes?
For instance, has the paper used for these slips been scanned and analysed for signs that they date back to her in the 17th century? What assurances do we have that Cavendish authored or instructed these slips herself? Given the shocking discovery of the fake Dead sea Scrolls, what checks have been conducted to ensure none of the slips in Cavendish's works are fakes, either added in a previous century, or in the 21st century? After all, some misogynistic men in her lifetime falsely claimed that Margaret Cavendish did not author all her own work. For instance, even the Cavendish family's own doctor and fellow Natural Philosopher, Walter Charleton, pretended that Cavendish was not the original, independent female writer and sole author of her works as she sold herself to be⁸. Furthermore, although Cavendish had difficult publishers, which is why she went on to self-publish, she is no longer having to battle male publisher's at time these slips were added to The Convent of Pleasure.
So, given this negative historical backdrop of plotting against the reputation of Margaret Cavendish, it's not impossible that someone would be motivated to create some fake slips to alter her work to make it appear as though she depended on her husband to help her write her work, and to convince people that she, Margaret Cavendish, was misrepresenting herself as a capable, intelligent, independent woman who never needed to co-author in order to produce her ideas and books.
This is a typical misogynistic stance that attempts to destroy women's reputation and work. As soon as their work is of a high standard you try to pretend they couldn't possibly have done it themselves. Unbelievably, this type of misogynistic nonsense still circulates today against talented, highly intelligent women. And now we're trying to impose this misogyny onto women in the past. The 18/19th century philosopher, Mary Shepherd has also suffered from this recently. Scholarship⁹ is trying to remove one of her treatises by claiming it was written by a man. A preposterous idea because the man in question wasn't even a philosopher.
Therefore, it is important and rather pivotal to establish the authenticity of these slips otherwise researchers could be distracted away from focusing on Margaret Cavendish and focusing instead on her husband, William, and whether he, the long-suffering husband, was simply not accredited for his contribution to her writings. This appropriates women's history by coming out with a competing claim that women write men out of history too for which researchers have no evidence. It's rather a fanciful claim in the modern sense of the word. Indeed, this focus on William has already been suggested at the end of the Southampton conference, to my horror because William Cavendish himself stated that her poems were written solely by her and defended his stance against the doctor who tried to claim otherwise. Why are we questioning William's defence of his wife, Margaret?
It's also unacceptable to take attention away from a female philosopher/scientist and start emphasizing the alleged importance of a man, worse still, a husband.
This is an identity issue. Just as we try to rebalance the history of philosophy to celebrate under represented groups, such as women, especially as in Cavendish's case, a woman who was genderfluid and a lesbian, we try to turn attention back to a man.
This sounds like some modern gender critical and anti-LGBT ideology being imposed on past women writers/philosophers especially if they are perceived as going against sexist societal expectations by not being simpering, feminine, good Christian women. In this way, identity is written out of history to support the notion it never existed in the first place.
The 18th century philosopher and writer Mary Wollstonecraft suffered from this too. Today, many scholars agree that Wollstonecraft was sapphic which led to her being included in Islington's Pride LGBTQ+ heritage plaques project, acknowledging her sapphic identity¹⁰. This plaque is pink coloured but a distinctive rectangular shape which highlights her "queer legacy"¹¹ and that she had lesbian relationships with women. Wollstonecraft used to also have a circular pink plaque, which was pink rather than the usual blue London plaque to specifically commemorate women's achievements in history. Although it was only recently erected, it was no sooner up then down. It's now listed as lost. It has been mysteriously, quietly removed and not replaced. According to London Remembers¹², it was taken down on some vague excuse that it was because of renovations to the frontage of the building. Why wasn't it permanently on the wall of the building like all other plaques? Wollstonecraft is an excellent example of far right ideology suppressing anything that isn't binary, heterosexual, emphasizing the differences between men and women. That is, men being geniuses and women, well, just a sad inferior version of men.
Returning to Margaret Cavendish. I really hope that the slips are authentic and that we can know, beyond all reasonable doubt, that they are originals and therefore can inform our Cavendish scholarship. I presume that such checks have already been carried out before the slips have been incorporated into Cavendish scholarship. Nevertheless, I shall take the precaution of continuing to research and question the authenticity of these slips, before I base my interpretation of Margaret Cavendish too heavily on them. Because, Margaret Cavendish was a very self assured woman who was confident in her own intellectual abilities so she wouldn't want her husband indeed any man to help her or adjust her writings And, furthermore, she was a feminist, before the word was in circulation, so wanted to show that a woman can live by the pen and be famous by their own efforts.
After all the medieval feminist courtly writer, Christine de Pizan was widely acclaimed by royalty and intellectuals as the first woman to live by the pen. Her poetry and prose was widely known and hugely respected. Perhaps Margaret Cavendish modelled herself on de Pizan. The latter was a court writer and Margaret Cavendish was at court as part of Queen Henrietta Maria's close circle. So there's a similarity between them, right there, especially since both were in French courts for a period of time, even though they were born elsewhere. And this may be why Cavendish, inspired by de Pizan, also wrote poetry and prose.
In my opinion, the certainty of the authenticity of the slips is a pressing issue, given that entire editions of Cavendish's work are relying on the slips being of scholarly value and relevance, and that PhD student researchers such as Robin Elizabeth Haas are relying on the perceived wisdom in academia that these slips are genuine and do tell us something significant about Margaret Cavendish's authorial intentions and wishes.
Enjoy the lovely weather and do join me next week for the next installment of Season 13 on Cavendish and more Philosophy Fluency.
Works cited in this episode:
¹Haas, Robin Elizabeth. ‘Collaboration, Publication, and Queer/Trans Recognition in Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure’. University of Southampton, 2025.
²Joubin, Alexa Alice, and Mary Ann S. Saunders. ‘The Tempest as Trans Archive: An Interview with Scholar Mary Ann S. Saunders’. Borrowers and Lenders The Journal of Shakespeare Appropriations 14, no. 2 (28 April 2023): 117–24. doi:10.18274/bl.v14i2.351.
https://borrowersojsazsu.tdl.org/borrowers/article/view/35
Ibid
⁴Fisher, Gavin. ‘Shakespeare's Transgender Spirit Sparks UBC Professor's Talk’. CBC News, 14 March 2016.
⁵ Fisher (2016); Joubin, Saunders (2023)
⁶ Fisher (2016); Joubin, Saunders (2023)
⁷ Haas (2025)
⁸Semler, L.E. Stories of Selves and Infidels: Walter Charleton’s Letter to Margaret Cavendish (1655). In: Shaw, J., Kelly, P., Semler, L.E. (eds) Storytelling: Critical and Creative Approaches. Palgrave Macmillan, London. (2013)
https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137349958_15
⁹Boyle, D., “A Mistaken Attribution to Lady Mary Shepherd”, Journal of Modern Philosophy 2: 5. (2020)
doi: https://doi.org/10.25894/jmp.2077
¹⁰ Islington’s Pride. ‘Our 50 LGBTQ+ Heritage Plaques Across Islington’, 18 May 2021.
https://islingtonspride.com/2021/05/18/50-heritage-plaques-2/.
¹¹ Ibid
¹² London Remembers. ‘Mary Woollstonecraft - Lost Plaque’. Accessed 9 July 2025.
https://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/mary-woollstonecraft-lost-plaque/.
