Margaret Cavendish and Memorialization

Abstract

For Margaret Cavendish, memorialization was inextricably linked to her reputation as an author, and she returns repeatedly to the representation of death and subsequent fame in her oeuvre. This fascination with mortality is evidenced by the sheer number of works in which she represents a range of early modern memorialization rituals, including deathbed speeches, funerals, tombs, mourning, and elegies. This article analyzes how Cavendish writes about mourning conventions throughout her corpus, with a particular focus on deathbed speeches in Orations of Divers Sorts (1662); funerals in Youths Glory, and Deaths Banquet (1662); tombs and mourning in Bell in Campo (1662); and elegies in Poems, and Fancies (1653). Overall, it argues that Margaret Cavendish reworked conventional early modern memorialization practices to lay claim to posthumous authorial fame and to challenge the marginalization of women in memorialization rituals.