Abstract
This chapter explores both Cavendish’s Philosophical Letters and The Blazing World to show how rethinking the physics of wax impression changes how we understand not only how objects relate to each other, but also what it means to be a self and to engage in various kinds of relationships with other selves. By positing that everything is material and all matter is infused with agency and motion, Cavendish questions hierarchical relations and invests agency in seemingly passive positions. While this philosophy figures only briefly in The Blazing World, this chapter argues that the Cavendish’s exploration of selfhood, friendship, and intimate relations in that text, owe much to her philosophy of patterning.
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Maxwell, L.M. (2019). Wax Patterning: Cavendish and the Physics of Wax. In: Wax Impressions, Figures, and Forms in Early Modern Literature. Early Modern Cultural Studies 1500–1700. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16932-9_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16932-9_4
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