In contrast to John Webster, whose well-chronicled reveling in macabre nihilism emphasizes the fragility of the self, Margaret Cavendish promotes a radical individualism, a standpoint that some readers might consider strident or off-putting. Given her persistent attention to theories of personhood, Cavendish virtually demands inclusion in a biography of the self, particularly because she both records and resists some of the changes incipient or underway in her world, transformations that would have considerable implications for theories of humanness. Accordingly, this chapter focuses on Cavendish’s Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World (1666), a utopian prose text that heralds the genre of science fiction.

The Blazing World aptly suits my aims; more generally, this text speaks to our current moment, as evidenced by the thriving critical response to it, especially over the last decade or so. As Bronwen Price succinctly notes, “There is good reason to be interested in the work of Margaret Cavendish at the present moment,” given that “her writing raises many of the questions which have concerned English studies in recent years” (127). Price meticulously details the nexus of gender and power in The Blazing World, observing how Cavendish deliberately engages the work of male colleagues such as Francis Bacon or Robert Hooke (131, 133). In brief, Price clarifies how The Blazing World outlines “the politics of speaking, writing and knowing” (141). Aaron R. Hanlon likewise takes up epistemological concerns relevant to The Blazing World in his recent essay on this text.