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3.2: Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673)

From the Middle Ages to the Early Eighteenth Century · LibreTexts

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    From LibreTexts, under CC BY-SA 4.0, as the source states it; its equations are written in TeX, which the PDF shows typeset. This page at LibreTexts.

    Portrait of Margaret Cavendish.
    Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. (Public Domain; Unidentified miniature painter, by Mary Mark Ockerbloom via Wikimedia Commons)

    Frank in her pursuit of fame, Margaret Cavendish published an astonishing number of works in a diverse array of genres—including letters, essays, autobiography, utopian romance, natural philosophy (science), and drama. All of her work is marked by experimentation and her self-consciousness as a female author.

    Writing as a Woman in a Male-Dominated Literary Tradition

    Cavendish's writing displays the “doubleness” that female authors often worked through when modeling their work on male authors—such as John Donne and John Milton—and on male-dominated traditions—such as the lyric—while at the same time subverting and rebelling against them. She challenged culturally-imposed limits on her desire to pursue pleasure, mirth, and fame; she elevated the goddess Natura as the world’s true and benevolent guide, implicitly criticizing male abuse of the world God placed under their care; she identified with nature and animals, especially in their vulnerability to aggressive—even violent—male mistreatment. As she declares in “The Hunting of the Hare:” “Man doth think himselfe so gentle, mild, / When he of Creatures is most cruell wild” (Cavendish 112).

    Public Reactions to Cavendish

    Her contemporaries took a double view of Cavendish herself, with some viewing her as eccentric and egotistical—a characteristic then considered deplorable in a woman—and others admiring her abilities.

    Court Life, Marriage, and Intellectual Freedom

    For a woman of her position, born to wealthy Royalist parents, Cavendish followed somewhat conventional expectations by becoming a maid of honor to Queen Henrietta Maria (1609-1669), remaining loyal to her when she was exiled to Paris. She also did what was expected when, in Paris, she met and married William Cavendish (1592-1676), a Royalist general and exile with Charles II, a writer and patron of the arts who was thirty years her senior, and a Duke who recovered his property and title after the Restoration. But through this conformity, Cavendish reached comparative freedom, as her husband wholeheartedly encouraged and financially supported Cavendish’s writing and philosophical education, even when it entailed a visit to the Royal Society and acquaintanceship with such philosophers as Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and René Descartes (1596-1650).

    Work Cited

    Cavendish, Margaret. "The Hunting of the Hare." Poems, and Fancies Written by the Right Honourable, the Lady Margaret Newcastle, printed by T.R. for J. Martin, and J. Allestrye, University of Michigan, 1653, pp. 110-12. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed 29 June 2026.

    This page titled 3.2: Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673) was last modified on Wed, 12 Aug 2026 19:09:30 GMT and is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Kelsey Ford.