Contextualising Cavendish the Cavalier (14.8)

Below is the script for Season 14, episode 8 of my Philosophy Fluency podcast. 

You can listen to this episode here.

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Hello and welcome to Philosophy Fluency, Season 14 episode 8. During gingerbread mocha coffees today, I shall continue my analysis of Margaret Cavendish, by deepening my discussion of my historical, social, and literary contextualising of her in my research, whilst relating what I'm currently working on to Susan James's three Cavendish talks that I attended this year. 

Last week I was setting out an overview of the generic framework of contextualising Cavendish. This period in history is quite complex and since I'm concerned with only Margaret Cavendish's writings, I'll stay with a relatively simplistic historical overview. 

I mentioned how Queen Henrietta Maria's court heavily influenced the literature that emerged from it and how eminent male writers, such as Davenant, also required approval from the Queen and her circle of women. I also mentioned how 'fancy' was a key concept and tool of the Cavalier writer.

Who is a Cavalier? The word started as an uncomplimentary nickname for wealthy people who were Royalists and believed in the divine right of kings, which, in their day, meant supporting King Charles I and his son, Charles II. I suggest Margaret Cavendish's Royalist views may have influenced her character of the Prince/Princess in her play, The Convent of Pleasure, since the character claims they are wanted as a ruler of a foreign land. Cavaliers would thus assume that this meant the Prince/Princess might have the potential social status of a divine king-like ruler who might only be answerable to God. Given this, it would follow that they can marry the woman of their choosing, irrespective of whether a puritanically pious woman agrees with the marriage or not. 

The ideal Cavalier man combined masculine pursuits, such as knowing how to ride a horse into battle during a war, with being scholarly, especially in the fields of Philosophy, Poetry, and Science. 

So, I suggest, Cavendish is being a typical Cavalier in her writings in not only her subject matters such as war but also in her writing style which drew on poetic techniques together with the scholarly disciplines of natural science and philosophy. She was known to wear a scholars hat so clearly identified as one. 

Furthermore, Cavendish also dressed as a Cavalier, not only when dressing in women's clothes but also when dressing in men's attire. However, her Cavalier allegiances are more obvious when she dresses as a typical male Cavalier because it was a distinctive, visually striking fashion. Hence, I argue, Cavendish was perhaps making a political statement about her Royalist loyalties by choosing to wear men's Cavalier attire specifically, as opposed to men's clothing per se.

I wish to put forward the idea that her Cavalier fashion strongly indicates that this was also part of her identity which is highly relevant to both her style of writing and the content of her works. Therefore, I place Margaret Cavendish and her works within the Cavalier tradition. 

On the opposing side of the Cavaliers were the Roundheads, a political group who were Parliamentarians and anti-monarchy. Therefore, they wanted Parliament to be the main source of power, rather than the Monarch. Most Roundheads also belonged to the Puritans, which was a religious ideology, who wished to impose a strict Christian morality; opposed the monarchy on religious grounds and tried to ensure that all semblance of Catholicism be stripped away. This was unfortunate since the queen, Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I, was a Catholic. 

Oliver Cromwell was the leader of both the Roundheads and Puritans. And it was he who replaced the king, Charles I, becoming Lord Protector of the land.

What was distinctive about Cavalier writers? Cavalier writers were usually referred to as Cavalier Poets, even if they didn't exclusively write poetry. They weren't simply Cavaliers who happened to write. There was an entire style and approach that they mostly had in common so they formed a somewhat cohesive group but with many individual differences within it.

The hallmarks of their writings include: the glorification of honour (a favourite topic of Cavendish); the value of fancy and fantasy (which is a theme in Cavendish); being flamboyant (which Cavendish certainly was); valuing and praising pleasure and advocating being the best version of yourself (which reminds me of how the women in Cavendish's play want to become their best selves and live their best life by entering the Convent of Pleasure). 

Cavalier writers used more direct language so it was easier for readers to understand their meaning. This was sometimes denigrated as sounding somewhat uneducated, despite their class. So I wonder whether Cavendish isn't merely talking like a Cavalier when she seems to excuse her uneducated style of writing. 

It's easy to take this too literally these days and jump to conclusions that she's referring to her level of educational attainment and that of Early Modern women.

How elaborate or scholarly a reader finds the style is also relative to the era of the reader. For a Cavalier, a mixture of almost uneducated simplicity together with the use of beautiful poetic devices struck the right scholarly, social and political balance, especially if it was written in such a way that it avoided sounding like the style and values of the Parliamentarian Roundheads, the Puritans or the Metaphysical Poets such as John Donne.

A word of caution here: Don't get confused by the word metaphysical here. These poets were far more religious and spiritual than the Cavaliers and their idea of philosophy conformed to it, hence they favoured topics such as, free will, the existence of God and so on. The Cavalier poets, however, favoured secular subjects and earthly, not transcendent, pleasures.

Thus, when I refer to the way Cavendish has a somewhat ornate style of writing, I'm not referring to the way in which the Metaphysical Poets could be ornate. Theirs was ornate in a more transcendent, artificial, religious way, whereas the Cavaliers were ornate in a more flamboyant, Royalist style, like a beautiful palace, and preferred references to the natural world and romantic love. 

Unlike the Roundheads, the Cavaliers did have a few women writers, so Margaret Cavendish was not the only one. Others included Aphra Behn and Katherine Phillips who both wrote plays and poems, amongst other forms of writing. 

Do join me next week for more Philosophy Fluency which will be a continuation of contextualising Margaret Cavendish's writings. Meanwhile, have a good week and take care.