The Blazing World

Cavendish uses her husband’s poem as an epigraph to give her unique and radical text masculine support. William Cavendish’s position as a patron of the arts gave him authority to speak on the quality of her work. The poem also reflects William Cavendish’s lifelong support of his wife’s ambitions, as he compares her worldbuilding favorably to the mere exploration of 15th century Italian navigator Christopher Columbus. William Cavendish diminishes Columbus as having only discovered a country, while Cavendish created one from whole cloth.

Cavendish uses the author’s note to insist on the serious nature of her writing. In her decision to “join a work of Fancy to my serious Philosophical Contemplations” (59), she hopes to support one with the other. By outlining how the rational and the fantastical can work together, she argues that describing the way the world could actually be is another way of gaining knowledge and seeking truth. William Cavendish’s poem supports Cavendish’s claim that fiction can be thus used for discovery and enlightenment.

Throughout the front matter, Cavendish compares herself to notable male figures, suggesting that her work rivals that of 2nd century Greek satirist Lucian, English kings Henry V and Charles II, and military and political leaders Caesar and Alexander the Great. Yet she also makes clear that she is neither a man nor attempting to be one. Instead, she “endeavour[s] to be Margaret the First” (60). Cavendish is arguing for women’s inclusion and parity, not female supremacy.