The utopia the Blazing World

a mundus intellectualis

Authors

  • Milene Cristina da Silva Baldo Universidade Estadual de Campinas

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35699/2525-8036.2017.5022

Keywords:

Margaret Cavendish, English literature, Utopia, Utopian studies, Utopianism

Abstract

The utopia The description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World was first published in 1666 by the natural philosopher Margaret Lucas Cavendish (the Duchess of Newcastle). This work is considered to be the first utopian work written by a woman and presents the history of the discovery of a new world by stranger, after a trip across the seas. This world has perfect organization of law, state, religion etc., resulting in a harmonious life for its inhabitants. This article intends to analyze how the utopian characteristics appear in this work as, after his arrival, the stranger starts to interfere in this world, in opposite to what happens in Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) and the most of the utopian works of this time. This causes a number of changes, mainly in reason to the stranger’s will in to establish scientific societies in that land. I also signalize some of the relations between this work and others texts produced throughout the seventeenth century such as those of Thomas Hobbes and Francis Bacon, whose ideas were essentials to the Cavendish’s thougtht.

Author Biography

  • Milene Cristina da Silva Baldo, Universidade Estadual de Campinas

    Doutoranda em Teoria Literária no Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem, UNICAMP. Membro do U-TOPOS - Centro de Pesquisa sobre Utopia e do grupo de estudos “Renascimento e Utopia” (IEL/UNI-CAMP). Contato: milenebaldo@gmail.com

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Published

2017-07-28

How to Cite

The utopia the Blazing World: a mundus intellectualis. Revista de Ciências do Estado, Belo Horizonte, v. 2, n. 1, p. 126–150, 2017. DOI: 10.35699/2525-8036.2017.5022. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/revice/article/view/e5022. Acesso em: 22 dec. 2024.

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