The Blazing World
The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World , also known as The Blazing World (German Die Gleißende Welt ), is a prose work by the author Margaret Cavendish , the Duchess of Newcastle,published in 1666/1668,as a text of utopian literature or regarded as the forerunner of science fiction . The text was published together with the Observations upon Experimental Philosophy by the same author, so to speak as an imaginative addition to a “serious” work.
action
A young, beautiful woman is kidnapped in a boat by an admirer who has no chance. A storm drives the boat to the North Pole, where the admirers and crew freeze to death. Because of her youth, the woman survives and ends up in another world, the glittering world, which is connected to ours via the North Pole. There she meets all kinds of rational, upright walking beings in animal form, who live in peace with one another and bring her to the king of her world, who makes her his queen.
In the following the knowledge and views of the various beings are described, all of which have special inclinations and possibilities of knowledge; so the “bird men” can fly to the stars and work as astronomers, while the “worm men” explore the interior of the earth as geologists. Different answers to different questions are often presented, with the queen always giving preference to one.
In order to spread Christianity in her new realm, the queen lets immaterial beings, with whom she discussed questions of religion, bring the spirit of the Duchess of Newcastle as a writer from their (third) world into the Blazing World. The two women quickly become friends and discuss many questions with one another. But one day the Duchess' spirit appears sad; she would also like to be the ruler of a world and shape it. And although there are infinite worlds within the multiverse of narrative, all of them are already inhabited. So the immaterial beings propose that the duchess create an abstract world of their own within themselves that they would naturally rule over. This is what both women do.
In the second part of the text, the Queen learns that her homeland is being attacked by hostile powers on her homeworld and rushes to his aid with her subjects.
meaning
The text is seen as an early example of science fiction , but is particularly interesting in that it tries to explain the world according to the knowledge of the time; although there is a lot of argument (which is not necessarily a typical feature of sci-fi novels), the explanation of the world is quite strange from the perspective of the present; in this respect, from today's point of view, the text can be read as a kind of reverse time travel novel.
Cavendish also discusses problems such as power, religion and gender, and makes clear the right (and will) of women to participate in shaping the world. In this respect, it is not only a forerunner of clearly feminist texts, but also evidence of what was quite possible for women from the upper class in England at the time.
The Blazing World is considered the only utopian text by a 17th century author.
Trivia / Influence
The Blazing World is the place of origin of one of the characters from Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen .
Siri Hustvedt's 2014 novel not only has the same title; Margaret Cavendish also names the protagonist of the novel, who is fighting for recognition in the male-dominated art scene of New York, as an important source of inspiration.
expenditure
Original edition:
- The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World. Printed by A. Maxwell, London 1668.
German:
- The glittering world . Translated and with an afterword by Virginia Richter. Scaneg Verlag, Munich 2001.
Web links
- The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World can be downloaded here; A Celebration of Women Writers
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lee Cullen Khanna : The Subject of Utopia: Margaret Cavendish and Her Blazing-World. In: Utopian and Science Fiction by Women: World of Difference. Syracuse UP, Syracuse 1994, pp. 15-34.