“A Peaceable World”: The Blazing World of Margaret Cavendish and the Foundations of the Feminist Utopian Imaginary

Abstract

A systematic study of the personal, intellectual, and cultural forces that influenced Margaret Cavendish’s development of The Blazing World (1666) reveals how her representations of women, power, and leadership reenvision possibilities for women and society through the rhetorical creation of new worlds, providing insights into the formation of a feminist utopian imaginary and the feminist utopian genre. Studying the life and work of Cavendish, as a woman who engaged in the imaginative and intellectual tasks of utopian thought and writing in the seventeenth century, including her choices in publishing her works and challenging conceptions of women’s abilities and ambitions, aids in better understanding the foundations of women’s utopias, particularly as she endeavored to draw from a feminist imaginary in crafting her visions. Using qualitative analysis of primary texts ranging from fourteenth to twentieth century primary sources, including those of Cavendish and others, and secondary scholarly sources, this study brings together Cavendish’s influences and examines the themes and devices she developed within The Blazing World in an original way, as a framework for a new and enduring utopian model that encompasses feminism, science fiction, and mythopoesis to remythologize women’s power and leadership, providing fresh ground to reap novel understandings about Cavendish’s work and its implications. In doing so, this project also explores feminist utopian works from hundreds of years in the future beyond this text. Mizora (1881) by Mary Bradley Lane and The Shore of Women (1986) by Pamela Sargent are analyzed to determine how Cavendish’s themes resonate across time as critical pillars upon which utopian works by women orient in common ways, and where they also deviate according to historical context and concerns.

Disciplines

Comparative Literature | History | Modern Literature | Women's Studies

Subject Area

Comparative literature; History; Womens studies; Modern literature

Department

Humanities (HUM)

First Advisor

Demy, Timothy

Second Advisor

Irving, Washington

Third Advisor

Hennessy, Jayme

Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

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