Margaret Cavendish 1623 – 1673
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, was an English philosopher, poet, and prose writer and the first woman to attend a meeting of the Royal Society. Working in the thick of the seventeenth-century philosophical debates, she developed an original materialist and vitalist natural philosophy in which all of nature, including matter, is rational and self-moving. The Blazing World, appended to her Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, is among the earliest works of science fiction. Her self-description as ambitious for fame in an age that expected silence from women has long fascinated readers.
Key facts
- Nationality
- English
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Early Modern
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Margaret Cavendish:
“I had rather die in the adventure of noble achievements than live in obscure and sluggish security.”
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Attributed to Margaret Cavendish:
“Nature is one infinite body, made of an infinite number of parts.”
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Attributed to Margaret Cavendish:
“Thought is matter; and matter, rightly understood, is rational.”
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Attributed to Margaret Cavendish:
“Reason is corporeal, for it acts in matter and through matter.”
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Attributed to Margaret Cavendish:
“If I cannot be Henry the Fifth, I will be Margaret the First.”