Worlds within worlds

[wolfinthewood]

Today I spent a damp but fascinating few hours at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire, a medieval castle reconstructed in the seventeenth century as a fantastical country house by Charles Cavendish and his son William, later Duke of Newcastle. I should have gone there years ago, but never mind. I shall go back soon. There is an amazing amount of early Stuart interior decor surviving more or less intact (in places, tactfully restored).

I am still pondering the pictures in one of the closets, or private rooms: three pairs of naked ladies, in passionate embrace, said to be representations of the Virtues. (Seriously.) The guide book remarks: ‘Many art historians describe the pictures in here without drawing attention to their risqué subject matter.’ mantua_maker was one of the party, and took pictures at my request; I’ll link to them when she has put them up on Flickr.

William Cavendish is remembered these days principally for two things: his military career as a Royalist general during the First Civil War, and his flamboyant second wife Margaret Lucas, the writer. The Cavendishes were passionately interested in philosophy and science. Some of Margaret’s poems might be seen as early examples of science fiction poetry, as in this piece where she speculates on the possibility of plural worlds:

Of many Worlds in this World

Just like unto a Nest of Boxes round,
Degrees of sizes within each Boxe are found.
So in this World, may many Worlds more be,
Thinner, and lesse, and lesse still by degree;
Although they are not subject to our Sense,
A World may be no bigger then two-pence.
Nature is curious, and such worke may make,
That our dull Sense can never finde, but scape.
For Creatures, small as Atomes, may be there,
If every Atome a Creatures Figure bear.
If foure Atomes a World can make, then see
What several Worlds might in an Eare-ring bee.
For Millions of these Atomes may bee in
The Head of one small, little, single Pin.
And if thus small, then Ladies well may weare
A World of Worlds, as Pendents in each Eare.

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623–1673)

from Poems and Fancies (1653)


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