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18b. Bonus: Liza Blake on Margaret Cavendish.
Even though the book starts out saying “Reason is one thing and Fancy is
another; Imagination is one thing and Philosophy is another,” she’s then
showing throughout the book how these are very similar kinds of actions.
Epicurus was making a world too. Was he living in it? Unclear. But by
imagining that he lived there, he led a different kind of life.
We were overwhelmed by Margaret Cavendish’s wild novel The Blazing
World, so we needed to bring in an expert.
Who did we turn to? Liza Blake,
assistant professor of English at the University of
Toronto.
She works on literature and science, literature and philosophy, and, most
recently, the books of Margaret Cavendish. Perfect! We talk about how to get
past those first impressions of Cavendish, what parts of The Blazing World are
satire, the importance of speculation to science and philosophy, and whether
animals can philosophize. (You might hear some animals philosophizing in the
background…)
Show Notes.
Liza Blake is on Twitter. You can find out
more about her academic work on her faculty
page.
Her critical edition of Margaret Cavendish’s first book, Poems and
Fancies.
Cavendish poems mentioned in this episode:
A World in an
Earring
Of Sense and Reason Exercised in Their Different
Shapes
It Is Hard to Believe that There are Other Worlds in This
World
Of the Knowledge of
Beasts; of
Fishes; of
Birds
Virginia Woolf on Margaret
Cavendish.
Lara Dodds wrote
thoughtfully about Cavendish’s “bad
writing”.
Prince Rupert’s drops
are pretty neat.
Robert Hooke: Micrographia (and
its
flea).
Margaret Cavendish: Sociable Letters and
Philosophical Letters.
Henry More.
John Wilkins: The Discovery of a World in the
Moone.
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon to make
our world a little more blazing.
View all episodes
By Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Chris Piuma
4.8
3030 ratings
Even though the book starts out saying “Reason is one thing and Fancy is
another; Imagination is one thing and Philosophy is another,” she’s then
showing throughout the book how these are very similar kinds of actions.
Epicurus was making a world too. Was he living in it? Unclear. But by
imagining that he lived there, he led a different kind of life.
We were overwhelmed by Margaret Cavendish’s wild novel The Blazing
World, so we needed to bring in an expert.
Who did we turn to? Liza Blake,
assistant professor of English at the University of
Toronto.
She works on literature and science, literature and philosophy, and, most
recently, the books of Margaret Cavendish. Perfect! We talk about how to get
past those first impressions of Cavendish, what parts of The Blazing World are
satire, the importance of speculation to science and philosophy, and whether
animals can philosophize. (You might hear some animals philosophizing in the
background…)
Show Notes.
Liza Blake is on Twitter. You can find out
more about her academic work on her faculty
page.
Her critical edition of Margaret Cavendish’s first book, Poems and
Fancies.
Cavendish poems mentioned in this episode:
A World in an
Earring
Of Sense and Reason Exercised in Their Different
Shapes
It Is Hard to Believe that There are Other Worlds in This
World
Of the Knowledge of
Beasts; of
Fishes; of
Birds
Virginia Woolf on Margaret
Cavendish.
Lara Dodds wrote
thoughtfully about Cavendish’s “bad
writing”.
Prince Rupert’s drops
are pretty neat.
Robert Hooke: Micrographia (and
its
flea).
Margaret Cavendish: Sociable Letters and
Philosophical Letters.
Henry More.
John Wilkins: The Discovery of a World in the
Moone.
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon to make
our world a little more blazing.
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