Full text | Table of Contents (item 2 of 12) for doctoral dissertation on Margaret Cavendish (1990)

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Biographical Summary

1.2 “Mad Madge”?

1.3 The Critics Speak

1.3.1 Literary Criticism
1.3.2 History and Philosophy of Science
1.3.3 Feminist Studies

1.4 Reconstructing Cavendish

1.5 Notes on Terminology

1.5.1 “New Science”
1.5.2 “Institutionalized New Science”
1.5.3 “Scientific” and “Technical” Discourse/Writing
1.5.4 “Masculine” and “Feminine”
1.5.5 “Feminist”
1.5.6 “Feminist Science”

2 THE FEMINIST PROBLEMATIC

2.1 The Seventeenth-Century’s Woman Question

2.1.1 “By the Lawes of Nature”
2.1.2 Querelle des Femmes
2.1.3 Précieuses Neoplatonism

2.2 Cavendish and the Feminist Tradition

2.3 “Ambition of Extraordinary Fame”

2.4 Alienation from Conventional Female Culture

2.5 Cavendish’s Feminist Dilemma

2.5.1 Argument: Woman is by nature weaker than man
2.5.2 Argument: Women’s emancipation would undermine state and family
2.5.3 Argument: Nature, not men, subjugates women
2.5.4 Argument: The feminine condition is superior to the masculine; why then should women wish to change it?
2.5.5 Chronic Criticism of Women
2.5.6 Internalization of Society’s Devaluations
2.5.7 Rote Repetition of Antifeminist Dogma
2.5.8 Conforming to the Feminine Ideal
2.5.9 Real Antifeminist Values

2.6 Cavendish’s Feminism: Problem Definition

2.7 Cavendish’s Feminism: Problem Solution

2.7.1 Remedy: Emulate Men
2.7.2 Remedy: Sisterhood
2.7.3 Remedy: Reconstructing the Feminine Ethos

2.8 Advancement over Arguments of Querelle des Femmes

2.9 Limitations of Her Feminism

2.9.1 Wrong Reasoning: Sexual Prejudice Is the Cause of Women’s Oppression
2.9.2 Devaluing “the Woman in Us”
2.9.3 Bird’s-Eye View of Women’s Oppression
2.9.4 Limited Analysis of the Sexual Division of Labor
2.9.5 Feminist Goals Skewed by Class
2.9.6 Trickle-Down Feminism

3 THE “TRIANGULAR COUNTENANCE” OF DISCOURSE

3.1 Publication as Power

3.1.1 Political Power
3.1.2 Power of Self-Definition

3.2 Breaking the Bounds of “Sociable” Discourse

3.2.1 The Dilemma
3.2.2 Escape through Writing

3.3 Confronting the Dominant Patriarchal Tenor of Literary Expression

3.4 “Natural Rational Discourse”

3.4.1 Nature as Text and Teacher
3.4.2 Natural Language Model
3.4.3 Random Sequencing Patterns

3.5 Vision of “Complementarity”

3.5.1 Rejecting the Logic of Either-Or
3.5.2 Substituting a Multiplicity of Perspective
3.5.3 Discourse as “an Arguing of the Mind”
3.5.4 The Pull of Univocality

3.6 Fusing the Discourses of Fiction, Fantasy, and Fact

3.6.1 Preeminence of Imagination in Cavendish’s Scientific Method
3.6.2 Similizing as a Technique of Natural Inquiry
3.6.3 Fanciful Nomenclature
3.6.4 “Ambivalent Discourse”

3.7 Infusion of “Feminine” Self in Discourse of Object

3.8 Return to Copia

3.9 The Taming of Her Discourse?

4   A (RE)FEMINIZED NEW SCIENCE PROJECT:
     CAVENDISH’S PHILOSOPHICAL AND PHYSICAL
     OPINIONS

4.1 A Question of Metaphors

4.1.1 New Science Gender-Related Imagery
4.1.2 Cavendish’s Recourse to Alternate Gender-Related Imagery

4.2 An Early Ecofeminist Critique of the New Science

4.3 Cavendish’s Ecofeminist Alternative

4.4 God the Father Versus Mother Nature

4.5 Theory of Human Generation

4.6 “Extravagant Atomes”

4.7 Doctrine of Matter and Motion

4.8 The “Triumvirate of Nature”

4.9 A Different New Science Methodology

4.9.1 “Speculative Philosophy” Preferred Before the “Hermaphroditical” Arts of Experimental Philosophy
4.9.2 Cavendish’s Empiricism
4.9.3 Anti-Reductionist Bias
4.9.4 Actual Practice Inadequate to Theory
4.9.5 Democratizing Impetus

5 “IMAGINATIONS OF IMPOSSIBILITIES”

5.1 Beyond the Confines of Reasonable Discourse

5.2 Cavendish’s Romances

5.3 Cavendish’s Utopias

5.3.1 The Blazing World
5.3.2 The Convent of Pleasure

5.4 Changing the Dimensions of Physical Reality

5.5 The Politics of Fantasy

6 CONCLUDING REMARKS

Appendix A THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CONTEXT:
WOMEN AND SCIENCE

A.1 Changes in the Division of Labor

A.2 Women’s Burgeoning Participation in Science and Technology Pre-Institutionalization

A.3 Counterforces Driving Women from Positions of Authority and Control in the New Science Movement

A.3.1 Changes in the Organization of Production
A.3.2 Professionalization
A.3.3 Expanding Market Economy
A.3.4 Institutionalization
A.3.5 “Improved Masculine Spirits”
A.3.6 Approved Methods

A.4 Women’s Newly-Subordinated Role

A.5 The “She-Philosopher”

Appendix B   THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CONTEXT:
     THE DISCOURSE OF THE NEW SCIENCE AS THE
     ULTIMATE MASCULINE REGISTER

B.1 In Search of the Ultimate Masculine Register

B.2 Reconstructing Eloquence

B.3 Reconstructing Rhetoric

B.4 Reconstructing Metaphor

B.5 Suppression of Copia

B.6 Preference for Classical Rhetorical Model

B.6.1 The Adversary Paradigm
B.6.2 The Conquest/Conversion Paradigm
B.6.3 The Primacy of “Ethos”

WORKS CONSULTED

1. Primary Sources

2. Secondary Sources