User:Melodygulliver/sandbox

Wikipedia Article Draft -- The Blazing World

Throughout The Blazing World, the Empress asserts that a peaceful society can only be attained through the lack of societal divisions. To eliminate potential division and maintain social harmony, Cavendish constructs a monarchical government. Unlike a democratic government, Cavendish believes only an absolute sovereignty can maintain social unity and stability because the reliance on one authority eliminates separations of power. To further justify the monarchical government, Cavendish draws upon philosophical and religious arguments. She writes, “it was natural for one body to have one head, so it was also natural for a politic body to have but one governor…besides, said they, a monarchy is a divine form of government, and agrees with most with our religion."

Cavendish’s political views are similar to English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes. In his 1651 book, Levithan, Hobbes famously upholds the notion that a monarchical government is a necessary force in preventing societal instability and "ruin." As a notable contemporary of Cavendish, Hobbe's influence on her political philosophy is apparent. In The Blazing World, Cavendish even directly mentions his name while cataloguing famous writers: "Galileo, Gassendus, Descartes, Helmont, Hobbes, H.More, etc".

Wikipedia Topic Assignment -- The Blazing World

The article for A Blazing World lacks a section which discusses the themes of the novel. Some of these themes include politics, religion, philosophy, and natural science. These themes are critical to A Blazing World because they directly influence the utopian society she constructs in the novel. For my Wikipedia article, I would want to contribute to the section on politics. Specifically, I would want to discuss the significance of " the monarch." While discussing the monarchal government, I can highlight how historical conflict of the time influenced the monarchal society she constructed and what the implications are in the text. I will largely refer to page 134.

Sources:

1. The text itself (pg. 134)
2. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30141878?pq-origsite=summon&seq=7#page_scan_tab_contents -- This article argues that individual freedom is only gained through peace and peace is only obtained when there are no divisions. i.e. stress on monarchal government (pg. 257)
3. http://muse.jhu.edu/article/198075 -- this article highlights the link between virtue and government

Wikipedia Article Criticism

Genre: The Wikipedia article for The City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan categorizes her work as “lengthy prose.” This categorization is very broad and fails to properly characterize the text’s genre. A more appropriate genre would be “dream vision.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the dream vision is “a narrative mode, chiefly associated with medieval poetry, in which the author recounts an alleged dream, the subject of which is typically open to allegorical interpretation.” On the page

Biographical Information: The article references Jean de Meun’s popular Roman de la Rose as book which propelled Christine to write, City of Ladies. It is probably worth mentioning Augustine’s City of God for it is a “direct allusion” to Christine’s City of Ladies.

Broad details: When describing the narrative, the article states: “As Christine builds her city, she uses each famous woman as a building block for not only the walls and houses of the city, but also as building blocks for her thesis.” While this is true, the broadness of the statement is a little misleading for Christine does not choose famous historical women at random. The text can benefit from the inclusion of these choices and a direct statement of the text’s thesis.