Margaret Cavendish and the exiles of the mind
By: Anna Battigelli.
Series: Studies in the English Renaissance
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky; The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Lexington, Ky
Language: eng
Number of pages: 180
Subjects: Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of, 1624?-1674 -- Knowledge and learning.; Women and literature -- England -- History -- 17th century.; Royalists -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century.; British -- Europe -- History -- 17th century.; Exiles -- Europe -- History -- 17th century.; Exiles in literature.; Renaissance -- England.; Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 17th century.
Description: Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673), led a dramatic life that brought her into contact with kings, queens, and the leading thinkers of her day. The English civil wars forced her into exile, accompanying Queen Henrietta and her court to Paris.

From this vantage point, she began writing voluminously, responding to the events and major intellectual movements of the mid-seventeenth century. Cavendish published twenty-three volumes in her lifetime, including plays, romances, poetry, letters, biography, and natural philosophy.

While previous biographers of Cavendish have focused almost exclusively on her eccentric public behavior, Anna Battigelli is the first to explore in depth her intellectual life. She dismisses the myth of Cavendish as an isolated and lonely thinker, arguing instead that the role of exile was a rhetorical stance, one that allowed Cavendish to address and even criticize her world.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [159]-174) and index.