Book Review: Early Modern Englishwomen Testing Ideas. Edited by Jo Wallwork and Paul Salzman. Ashgate, 2011

Including a nice balance of essays between established scholars and new researchers, this volume covers printed texts of a relatively small range of major writers from the mid-seventeenth century to the early eighteenth century: there are chapters on works by Mary Astell, Margaret Cavendish, Aphra B...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Literature & History 2012, Vol.21 (1), p.99
Main Author: Price, Bronwen
Format: Review
Language:English
Subjects:
Behn, Aphra (1640-1689)
Gassendi, Pierre (1592-1655)
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Including a nice balance of essays between established scholars and new researchers, this volume covers printed texts of a relatively small range of major writers from the mid-seventeenth century to the early eighteenth century: there are chapters on works by Mary Astell, Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn, Katherine Philips and Eliza Haywood. The essays explore the various ways in which the selected writers engage with ideas specifically located in the public sphere, including the arenas of politics, science, drama and philosophy. L. E. Semler's fascinating essay on the links between Cavendish's and Walter Charleton's ideas (and through him, Pierre Gassendi's) on the importance of the imagination to natural philosophy, adds to a growing body of criticism that treats Cavendish less for her singularity and more for her contribution to significant contemporaneous debates.
ISSN:0306-1973
2050-4594