Episode 18
October 19, 2019
The Blazing World
Hosted by Chris Piuma and Suzanne Conklin Akbari
The Duchess’s Soul [...] left her Ærial Vehicle, and entered into her Lord. The Empress’s Soul perceiving this, did the like: And then the Duke had three Souls in one body; and had there been some such Souls more, the Duke would have been like the Grand-Signior in his Seraglio, only it would have been a Platonick Seraglio. But the Duke’s Soul [...] afforded such delight and pleasure to the Empress’s Soul by his conversation, that these two souls became enamoured of each other; which the Duchess’s soul perceiving, grew jealous at first, but then considering that no Adultery could be committed amongst Platonick Lovers [...] cast forth of her mind that Idea of Jealousie. Then the Conversation of these three souls was so pleasant, that it cannot be expressed.
The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World, more commonly known as simply The Blazing World, is a philosophical flight of fancy by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. This book was first published in 1666, and is often considered a piece of proto–science-fiction. It tells the story of a woman who is transported to another world, a marvellous world, which she is almost immediately made empress of. Part philosophical treatise, part power fantasy, and part exploration of the joys of “Platonick” love between women, The Blazing World is an encomium to our powers of invention and creation. And it is a very, very, very weird book.
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Show Notes.
The Blazing World. [Project Gutenberg. 1668 edition at Archive.org. Librivox. Bookshop.]
Margaret Cavendish: Observations upon Experimental Philosophy. [Or at EEBO.]
Our episode on Christine de Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies.
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville.
With “Muñoz” we’re referring to José Esteban Muñoz’s Cruising Utopia (and the conversations that followed it).
Our episode on Plato’s Symposium.
Suzanne Conklin Akbari: Seeing Through the Veil: Optical Theory and Medieval Allegory.
Virginia Woolf wrote (famously, but uncharitably) about Margaret Cavendish.
Our next book: Ernest Hemingway: A Moveable Feast.
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