The Blazing World and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)

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The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World, better known as The Blazing World, is a 1666 work of prose fiction by the English writer Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle. Feminist critic Dale Spender calls it a forerunner of science fiction. [1] It can also be read as a utopian work. [2] Story [ edit ] The North Pole, where the pasageway in the story is located. a b Cavendish, Margaret (2016). The description of a new world, called the blazing world. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press. p.21. ISBN 9781554812424.

profession; nor, if I could, do I think I should ever be able to understand your Imaginary points, lines and figures, because they are Non-beings. Paper bodies: a Margaret Cavendish reader. Ed. Sylvia Bowerbank and Sara Mendelson. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2000. ISBN 1-55111-173-X PDF | Shakespeare and Cavendish: Engendering the Early Modern English Utopia. | ID: 0v838b479 | Tufts Digital Library". dl.tufts.edu . Retrieved 2021-05-09.

a b Pearl, Jason H. (2014). Utopian Geographies and the Early English Novel. University of Virginia Press. Jason Pearl has commented on the surrealism of the world, as well as (paradoxically) its similarity to our own. He writes, “The Lady’s experience is described as ‘so strange an adventure,’ in ‘so strange a place, and amongst such wonderful kind of creatures,’ ‘none like any of our world’...It seems anything is possible here,” and that, “near as it is, the Blazing World boasts a multitude of otherworldly marvels," but also believes that "the interstitial passageway exists as a wrinkle in space, a connecting disconnection that permits the Blazing World’s narrow reachability and legitimises its radical differences.” [15] By "interstitial passageway," Pearl is referring to the unseen, unexplained path the protagonist and her captors traverse in the beginning of the story to reach the Blazing World. water in which Lime-stone is immerged; their meat is nothing else but Fowl of several sorts, their recreations are many, but chiefly Hunting. Keller, Eve (1997). "Producing Petty Gods: Margaret Cavendish's Critique of Experimental Science". ELH. 64 (2): 447–471. doi: 10.1353/elh.1997.0017. JSTOR 30030144. S2CID 161306367.

but yet they proved at last but meer Cheats; and were described by one of their own Country-men, a famous Poet, named Ben. Johnson, in a Play call'd,The Alchymist, where he expressed Kelly by Capt. Face, and Dee by Dr. Subtle, and their two Wives by Doll Common, and the Widow; by the Spaniard the Play, he meant the Spanish Ambassador, and by Sir Epicure Mammon, a Polish Lord. The Empress remembred that she had seen the Play, and asked the Spirits, whom he meant by the name of Ananias? some Zealous Brethren, answered they, in Holland, Germany, and several other places. Then she asked them, Who was meant by the Druggist? Truly, answered the Spirits, We have forgot, it being so long since it was made and acted. What, replied the Empress, Can Spirits forget? Yes, said the Spirits; for what is past, is onely kept in memory, if it be not recorded. I did believe, said the Empress, That Spirits had no need of Memory, or Remembrance, and could not be subject to Forgetfulness. How can we, answered they, give an account of things present, if we had no Memory, but especially of things past, unrecorded, if we had no Remembrance? said the Empress, By present Knowledg and Understanding. The Spirits answered, That present Knowledg and Understanding was of actions or things present, not of past. But, said the Empress, you know what is to come, without Memory or Remembrance; and therefore you may know and good memories; I desire you to consider more the subject you speak of, then your artificial periods, connexions and parts of speech, and leave the rest to your natural Eloquence; which they did, and so became very eminent Orators.No sooner was the Lady brought before the Emperor, but he conceived her to be some Goddess, and offered to worship her; which she refused, telling him, (for by that time she had pretty well learned their Language) that although she came out of another world, yet was she but a mortal. At which the Emperor rejoycing, made her his Wife, and gave her an absolute power to rule and govern all that World as she pleased. But her subjects, who could hardly be perswaded to believe her mortal, tender'd her all the Veneration and Worship due to a Deity. Manguel, Alberto; Guadalupi, Gianni (1987). The Dictionary of Imaginary Places. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. pp.48–49. ISBN 0-15-626054-9. All upcoming public events are going ahead as planned and you can find more information on our events blog those Microscopes: for they never delude, but rectifie and inform the Senses; nay, the World, said they, would be but blind without them, as it has been in former ages before those Microscopes were invented.

The Empress was very well satisfied with this proposal, and having thus imployed these two sorts of men, in the mean while builded two Chappels one above another; the one she lined throughout with Diamonds, both Roof, Walls and Pillars; but the other This answer the Empress liked much better then the former, and enquired further, What opinion they had of those Creatures that are called the motes of the Sun? To which they answered, That they were nothing else but streams of very small, rare and transparent particles, through which the Sun was represented as through a glass: for if they were not transparent, said they, they would eclipse the light of the Sun; and if not rare and of an airy substance, they would hinder Northeastern University professor Marina Leslie remarks that readers have noted that The Blazing World serves as a departure from the habitually male-dominated field of utopian writing. While some readers and critics may interpret Cavendish's work as being restricted by these characteristics of the genre of utopia, Leslie suggests approaching interpretations of the work while remembering Cavendish as one of the first, more outspoken feminists in history, and especially in early writing. Leslie contends that in this sense, Cavendish utilised the utopian genre to discuss issues such as "female nature and authority" in a new light, while simultaneously expanding the utopian genre itself. [10]object perceptible by all our Senses, no more then several objects are by one sense. I believe you, replied the Empress; but if you can give no account of the Air, said she, you will hardly be able to inform me how Wind is made; for they say, that Wind is nothing but motion of the Air. The Bird-men answer'd, That they observed Wind to be more dense then Air, and therefore subject to the sense of Touch; but what properly Wind was, and the manner how it was made, they could not exactly tell; some said, it was caused by the Clouds falling on each other; and others, that it was produced of a hot and dry exhalation: which ascending, was driven down again by the coldness of the Air that is in the middle Region, and by reason of its leightness, could not go directly to the bottom, but was carried by the Air up and down: Some would have it a flowing Water of the Air; and others again, a flowing Air moved by the blaz of the Stars.