The Pleasure of Utopia: Objects of Desire, Epicureanism and Gender during the Renaissance from Thomas More to Milton
p. 257-272
Résumés
Epicurean philosophy argued that pleasure was the highest good. This article explores how this philosophy based upon pleasure and its relation to objects of desire was a factor in the rise of modernity. In doing so, this contribution investigates how a number of Renaissance thinkers wrote utopian texts that were influenced and shaped by Epicurean philosophy. Thus, Epicurean philosophy, which was fundamentally concerned with pleasure and one’s response to objects of desire, was influential in paving the way for women’s broader participation in science and philosophy.
La philosophie épicurienne soutenait que le plaisir était le bien suprême. Cet article explore la façon dont cette philosophie fondée sur le plaisir et sa relation aux objets de désir a été un facteur fondamental dans la montée de la modernité. Ce faisant, cette contribution étudie comment un certain nombre de penseurs de la Renaissance ont écrit des textes utopiques qui ont été influencés et façonnés par la philosophie épicurienne. On remarque d’ailleurs que la philosophie épicurienne, qui s’intéresse fondamentalement au plaisir et à la réaction de l’individu face aux objets de désir, a joué un rôle important en ouvrant la voie à une participation plus large des femmes à la science et à la philosophie.
Entrées d’index
Mots-clés : Épicure, Thomas More, Margaret Cavendish, John Milton, genre
Keywords : Epicurus, Thomas More, Margaret Cavendish, John Milton, Gender
Texte intégral
1In 1417, Poggio Bracciolini made an incredible discovery. He unearthed the only surviving copy of a full manuscript of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura, which is an account of Epicurean atomism written in poetic form in the first century BC.1 This discovery, according to Stephen Greenblatt, “changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it.”2 In addition, it “shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.”3 By ending his Pulitzer Prize-winning book with Thomas Jefferson, Greenblatt argues that Epicurean atomism and ethics, rediscovered during the Renaissance, influenced the philosophy behind the American Declaration of Independence. Hence, Greenblatt suggests that atomism influenced the formation of the new American republic. Yet, Greenblatt leaves out a crucial element of the story of atomism and the emergence of modernity. As Catherine Wilson notes, women such as Margaret Cavendish, Lucy Hutchinson and Aphra Behn as well as later eighteenth century women authors were particularly drawn to Epicureanism, a philosophy which advised people to desire fewer material objects. Yet, the “attraction of women to Epicureanism is a topic that has been little explored and even less explained.”4 Cavendish, for example, receives little critical attention for being the first person to provide an original theory of Epicurean atomism in Britain, and is not mentioned in Greenblatt’s account. Indeed, women’s contribution to this philosophy has been neglected by scholarship even though proponents of atomism, whether male or female, tended to hold uniquely different views about gender. This article aims to address these neglected issues, as it investigates the ways Epicureanism shaped the ways authors perceived pleasure in relation to private property, wealth and other material objects of desire. This trend is particularly evident in Renaissance utopias that were envisioning new societies, starting from as early as Thomas More (1496-1502). Hence, I will argue that the philosophy underpinning atomism opened up different avenues for conceptualizing objects of desire as well as gender, which may have been particularly appealing to women intellectuals.
2Leucippius and Democritus first proposed atomism in the 5th and 4th centuries B. C. However, atomism was mostly associated with Epicurus who lived between 341-270 BC and Lucretius, who lived in the 1st century BC. In particular, Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura is a text that explains Epicureanism through poetry. Pleasure and pain are the crux of Epicurean philosophy insofar as obtaining pleasure and eliminating pain are deemed the highest good.5 In essence, this means that it is a philosophy that suggests we rethink what and how we desire. For example, for Epicureans, some pleasures and desires, such as eating and sleeping, are natural and necessary, and some are natural, but unnecessary. So, desire itself is not to be avoided. However, desiring what Epicurus would deem unnecessary pleasures can cause pain. Hence, Epicureanism is a philosophy of moderation since removing pain often indicates removing many unnecessary objects of desire and short-term pleasures. For example, ten bottles of beer might seem like desirable objects that provide short-term pleasure, but ultimately the Epicurean would avoid this because it would cause much pain afterwards. The Epicurean would deem an expensive house or designer dress as objects of desire not worth pursuing, as these are not necessary to sustain human existence and unlikely to add significantly to the individual’s tranquility or pleasure. Indeed, Lucretius contends that humans do not require most material objects and wealth “for Nature craves No artifice nor luxury.”6 Consequently, Epicureans recommended a life of retreat away from power, politics, and wealth with few objects of desire. As Reid Barbour explains, for Epicureans, “the happiest life is a physically painless one of mental tranquility in the garden among friends. Far from the violent extremities of gluttony or lechery, then, this painless tranquility is what the Epicureans mean by elevating natural and necessary pleasure to the status of the greatest good.”7 As scholarship increasingly investigates the significant influence of Epicurean atomism and ethics upon the emergence of modernity, such changes are ultimately rooted in the Renaissance’s changing perception of pleasure in relation to objects of desire.
3Nearly 100 years after Bracciolini’s discovery of Lucretius’s text, Thomas More famously wrote Utopia, which is “one of the most influential texts in the western philosophical and literary tradition.”8 It portrays a society built upon Epicurean principles.9 For example, Utopians “define virtue to be living according to Nature” which they believe means that “pleasure, [is] the goal of all our actions.”10 Thus, the foundation of a virtuous, natural life is based upon seeking pleasure. Yet, such pleasure is not obtained through accumulation of wealth or objects: their “only care would be to keep a lesser pleasure from standing in the way of a greater one, and to avoid pleasures that are inevitably followed by pain.”11 Like Epicureans, More’s Utopians believe certain pleasures should be avoided or eliminated. Indeed, Utopians hold that those who pursue “false pleasures […] think themselves finer folk because they wear finer clothes.”12 Hence, “fine clothing was not respected in that land, silk was despised, and gold a badge of contempt.”13 For Utopians, objects of desire that increase one’s wealth and status “leave no room for true and genuine delights.”14 For example, they “marvel that any mortal can take pleasure in the dubious sparkle of a tiny little jewel or gemstone, when he has a star, or the sun itself, to look at. They are amazed at the madness of any man who considers himself as nobler fellow because he wears clothing of specially fine wool.”15 Utopians redefine traditional objects of desire such as jewels that signify wealth and status as material items of no value whatsoever. Instead, for Utopians true pleasures are caused by sociability, helping others, learning and good health because these qualities help ease anxiety and facilitate happiness. Nonetheless, material items such as food are desirable: “As for eating, drinking and other delights of that sort, they consider them desirable, but only for the sake of health. They are not pleasant in themselves, but only as ways to withstand the insidious encroachments of sickness.”16 Essentially, material objects are desirable, and thus pleasurable, if they help avoid pain. Although Epicureanism could be seen as contradictory to the genre of utopia insofar as utopias indicate a desire for a better society, and Epicureanism advises individuals to limit their desires, the text suggests that desire itself is not necessarily problematic. However, the specific desire for wealth and private property in Utopia causes social turmoil and pain, which does not lead to pleasure or an improved social world.
4Epicurean principles about jewels, gold and property lead to the Utopians’ communist beliefs, insofar as Utopians have no private property. In a letter to More in 1516, Jerome de Busleyden described the economic ethos of Utopia as one that forbids private property to ensure that society is not organized and motivated by greed or lust:
No one has anything of his own. Instead, everyone has everything in common for the sake of the common good, and thus every action and each decision, whether public or private, trifling or important, is not directed by the greed of the many or the lusts of the few, but is aimed solely at upholding one uniform rule of justice, equality and community solidarity.17
5The avoidance of private property is firmly established in order to ensure equality and justice and a sense of community without need for social hierarchy: there are only elected officials who oversee a communauty that is far more egalitarian than Renaissance Europe. Besides these, More, in the early 16th century, imagined women in this society as having a radically different status than in the world in which he lived. While “wives kneel before their husbands” before going to church,18 and cook for their community as well as work, women in Utopia nonetheless can be priests, join the military and fight wars, work in trades as well as men, and listen to academic lectures; and they are encouraged to read in their spare time. Hence, women have a far greater amount of status and agency in Utopia compared to More’s 16th century England.
6Perhaps More’s views of gender were influenced by Epicurean philosophy itself, which was conducive for rethinking gender relations, although it was associated with atheism and debauchery. As Wilson argues, the “atomist recognizes no natural rulers or natural subjects; there are only particles constantly in motion, some of which have coalesced into living bodies moved by appetite and aversion.”19 Without a premise justifying “natural rulers,” men are not natural rulers over women. Hence, Epicureanism, according to Barbour, “threaten[ed] to undermine the theology, cosmology, and morality so dear to Christian culture.”20 Epicurus had argued that the universe was composed of material atoms that were in a constant state of motion moving through a void where “atoms move continuously for all time.”21 Epicurean philosophy was particularly controversial on account of its argument that it was best for people to avoid mental pain by removing the fear of death and punishment from gods.22 Epicurus, who further held that the soul was material, argued against the likelihood of the soul’s survival after death and punishment in the afterlife, which he believed provoked great anxiety amongst humanity.23 Hence, there is little justification for a metaphysical or societal hierarchy within this philosophy. While feudalism slowly began its decline during the Renaissance, Epicurean atomism seems to have been a contributing factor since atomism allowed intellectuals to rethink the nature and structure of the universe, challenging and questioning social hierarchies that founded the feudal political world. Rather than a divinely ordained hierarchy, for example, atoms as understood by Epicurus structured the world by chance. As Greenblatt explains in his discussion of Lucretius, “there is no reason to think that the earth or its inhabitants occupy a central place […], no justification for dreams of limitless power or perfect security, no rationale for wars of conquest or self-aggrandizement.”24 Power, conquest and wealth are not objects of desire to be pursued in this ideology, but instead detract from one’s pleasure and tranquility. Utopians, for example, “despise war” and “think nothing so inglorious as the glory won in battle.”25 Besides conquest, “their chamber pots and all their humblest vessels [...] are made of gold and silver.”26 In other words, Utopian toilets are made of gold, associating gold and silver with waste and filth. Similarly, “criminals who are to bear the mark of some disgraceful act are forced to wear golden rings in their ears and on their fingers, golden chains around their necks, and even golden headbands. Thus, they hold up gold and silver to scorn in every conceivable way.”27 Utopians are socialized to see objects that traditionally signify and reinforce social hierarchy as filthy, criminal and certainly not to be desired.
7The egalitarian attitudes in Utopia, particularly in relation to gender can be seen over a century following More’s Utopia, with the seventeenth century Newcastle circle in Paris, who were instrumental in disseminating Epicurean atomism. Pierre Gassendi, a French Priest and member of the Newcastle circle, who translated Epicurus from the original Greek, advocated women’s ability to pursue philosophy and held “that women are equal in nature to men.”28 The origins of such attitudes can perhaps be traced back to Epicurus himself, who as Richard Kroll explains, “proposed the bonding of all, even women and slaves, by a friendship carried out within the confines of Epicurus’s famous garden.”29
8Epicurus allowed women and slaves into his philosophical school. This later drew contempt from Cicero, who according to a 1683 English translation, referred to an Epicurean woman, Leontium, as a “little Strumpet” and “Slut,” who “dar’d to Write against Wise Theophrastus.”30 As Barbour notes, the “tendency of Epicureanism to challenge or ignore established cultural boundaries was familiar to anyone who had read Cicero’s disgust with the presence of philosophizing women in the Garden.”31 Whether it was the hierarchy of men over women or the centrality of humans in the universe, atomism challenged conventional societal structures and prevailing views of nature.
9A number of men in the Newcastle circle further broke convention by encouraging Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) to pursue her intellectual activities. Her husband William, the Duke of Newcastle, and her brother-in-law Charles mentored and educated her.32 As a result, in 1653 she published a philosophical treatise titled Philosophical Fancies as well as Poems, and Fancies, both of which provide the first original theory of Epicureanism and atomism in Britain. It is important to recognize, as Lisa Sarasohn points out, that women “did not write natural philosophy in the 17th century. To do so was not only revolutionary but even unnatural, a complete blurring of the gendered characteristic considered inherent in the male and female.”33 While it is true that women contributed to the Republic of Letters and figured prominently in salons, prior to Cavendish, British women did not publish philosophical treatises about natural philosophy, let alone atomism. Walter Charleton, another member of the Newcastle Circle, encouraged Cavendish’s work in his correspondence with her, and also publicly endorsed Cavendish’s work to the all-male Royal Society when he explained to his male peers that Cavendish has “convinced the world, by her own heroic example, that no studies are too hard for her softer sex, and that ladies are capable of our admiration as well for their science as for their beauty.”34 John Evelyn, another associate of the Newcastle Circle, who in 1656 translated the first book of Lucretius, asserted that Cavendish demonstrates that “[t]here is no sex in the mind.”35 Thus, Cavendish’s scientific publications became objects of men’s desires, paving the way for women’s increased participation in science and philosophy.
10With the encouragement of men in the Newcastle Circle, Cavendish became a pioneer in changing women’s relation to philosophy. For example, Lucy Hutchinson, likely inspired by Cavendish, was the first person to translate the entire De Rerum Natura by Lucretius into English. Like Cavendish’s Poems and Fancies, De Rerum Natura was an epic poem that explored Epicurean philosophy. Another man from the Newcastle circle who encouraged women’s interest in Epicureanism was John Evelyn, whose wife, Mary, designed the frontpiece of his translation of Lucretius in 1656, thereby having her participate in the introduction of Epicurean ideas to a mass readership. In an age when few women published scientific works, all of these women were drawn to science and philosophy through Epicurean ideas.
11The trend continued later in the century. In 1682, Thomas Creech published another translation of Lucretius, which was immediately reprinted the following year. Aphra Behn not only wrote a poem for this second edition, but she also translated Fontenelle’s A Discovery of New Worlds (1688), which explored the Epicurean theory of multiple worlds. Epicurus argued that atoms can produce infinite worlds that resemble our own, or that can be entirely unlike our own.36 Like Cavendish, Hutchinson and Mary Evelyn, Behn’s translation of an Epicurean text shows her interest in publicly engaging with Epicurean science in print. The many translations of Lucretius that were emerging during this period, as well as the interest in the possibility of multiple worlds, demonstrate that Epicurean ideas were increasingly gaining popularity in Britain for both men and women, in part due to the influence of the Newcastle Circle, including Cavendish. Perhaps it is ironic that a philosophy that warns its adherents to avoid many objects of desire, quickly manifested into material, print objects desired by many readers.
12While Cavendish later denounced her atomism from her 1653 publications, she nonetheless continued to discuss them and referred her readers several times back to her previous work on atoms. Her shift in thinking derives from her later beliefs, which held that matter, including atomic particles, is infinitely divisible, or that matter can always fragment into smaller particles. In other words, Cavendish still believed in atoms, but her later work argues that that atoms can be divided into even smaller parts,37 a view that has been proven by contemporary science.
13Although her ideas on atoms evolved, Cavendish’s interest in Epicurean philosophy continued as demonstrated by her 1688 play The Convent of Pleasure. In this play, the adherents of Cavendish’s convent retreat from the public world and worship Epicurean principles and Nature personified as female, rather than a Christian deity. The protagonist, aptly named Lady Happy, declares she would prefer to “serve Nature” over gods.38 Although the women in the play devote all of their energies to seeking pleasure in this unorthodox convent, men are not objects of desire for them.
14Like Thomas More, Cavendish portrays a utopian society separate from the rest of the world, but in Cavendish’s world it is women that are separated from men. As a result, women occupy positions they generally could not experience in early modern society. The convent has “Women-Physicians, Surgeons and Apothecaries, and [Lady Happy] is the chief Confessor herself, and gives what Indulgences or Absolutions she pleaseth.”39 In this Epicurean convent, that worships Nature rather than God, Lady Happy serves as a priest for her community; a role that women today still cannot occupy in many religions. It is significant that More’s Epicurean utopia also had envisioned women as priests. In both utopias, women are certainly not property or simply objects of desire, but embody important leadership roles in society.
15Unlike More’s Utopia, the female protagonist of The Convent of Pleasure does not eschew riches, but structures her convent to avoid marriage in order to achieve pleasure—thereby eliminating men from her life. Hence, Lady Happy is aptly named “happy” since her desires are limited insofar as men are not meant to be objects of desire in this all-female community: we are told that
she hath avoided the company of Men, by retirement, merely, because she would enjoy the variety of Pleasures, which are in Nature; of which, she says, Men are Obstructers; for, instead of increasing Pleasure, they produce Pain; and, instead of giving Content, they increase Trouble; instead of making the Female Sex Happy, they make them Miserable.40
16For Lady Happy, women must separate from men in order to experience Epicurean tranquility. To emphasize this point, a character named Monsieur Take-Pleasure is one of Lady Happy’s most vocal suitors. The women in the convent put on a number of plays-within-plays that depict multiple ways in which women can be harmed under Renaissance marital law, including domestic abuse, neglect and irresponsible husbands spending wives’ personal finances while their families starve.41 Indeed, the plays-within-plays portray one of the most negative assessments of marriage in the early modernity; the miserable depiction of marriage in the play indicates that wives cannot experience Epicurean pleasure due to oppressive laws that disadvantage women. Wilson argues the “philosophically and morally attractive features of Epicureanism were its integration of human beings into the natural world, the postulate of human equality that it implied, and the notion that pain and pleasure, both psychological and physical, mattered, regardless of who was experiencing them and what that person’s status or merits might be.”42 Indeed, the women performing the plays-within-plays assume their pleasure matters, as they critique marital laws hindering women’s ability to experience justice as well as Epicurean pleasure and tranquility. The plays-within-plays not only critique marriage as an objective to be desired, but demonstrates that these women obtain pleasure through friendship, creativity and theatre as their main activities seem to be performing plays for each other. This is significant since English women had only just been allowed to perform on public stages in 1660. Hence, for Cavendish, utopia is not only an Epicurean elimination of desires, but also, it suggests that women will experience greater pleasure with more opportunities to cultivate their minds, agency and creativity.
17Cavendish was not the only person in the 17th century to envision a utopia that was influenced by Epicureanism. A year before her book The Convent of Pleasure came out, the devout Puritan, John Milton, had included atomist ideas in his account of the origins of Christian creation in Paradise Lost. For example, in Book 2, Satan discovers on “the brink of hell” a frightening place,43
a dark
Illimitable ocean without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,
And time and place are lost; where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.
For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce
Strive here for Mastery, and to battle bring
Their embryon atoms.44
18Milton imagines an endless and timeless realm of chaos where atoms fight eternally. This realm is Epicurean insofar as “Chance governs all” there.45 Greenblatt explains that atomism provided “no divine scheme,” nor an “end or purpose to existence, only ceaseless creation and destruction, governed entirely by chance.”46 Besides atoms chaotically holding endless wars in the realm of Chaos, we learn that God draws from this “wild abyss” to “create more worlds,”47 thus situating the Epicurean belief in multiple worlds into a Christian context. Although Epicureanism was associated with atheism, Milton’s cosmos is one where God draws from a vast Epicurean abyss to create worlds. Hence, atoms are fundamental to God’s creation in Milton’s account. As Sharon Achinstein explains, Milton “echo[es] Lucretius [and] may engage with a dangerous Epicureanism, but he does not write God out of the picture in approaching Nature.”48
19As in Thomas More’s Utopia, expensive items that might seem like objects to be desired do not induce happiness. Indeed, the fallen angels in Hell “digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire/ That riches grow in hell.”49 This gold helps them build Pandaemonium, their capital, with much “wealth and luxury” where,
Doric pillars overlaid
With golden architrave; nor did there want
Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven,
The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon,
Nor great Alcairo such magnificence
Equalled in all their glories.50
20In contrast to Hell, Adam and Eve live in “delicious Paradise,”51 Eden, a utopia without any gold, jewels or beautiful buildings. For Milton, utopia does not contain material objects of desire that signify wealth or status. This means that paradise is an object or location to be desired, but one that eliminates desire for material objects.
21While a reconsideration of pleasure in relation to objects of desire leads to more egalitarian views of gender for More and Cavendish, Milton’s views of gender are more ambiguous. On one hand, when Satan first views Adam and Eve the reader is told they were,
Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed;
For contemplation he and valour formed,
For softness she and sweet attractive grace,
He for God only, she for God in him.52
22While it is true that this view is from Satan’s perspective and therefore unreliable, God and the angels speak directly with Adam, and usually do not directly communicate with Eve, suggesting that Adam is “for God only.” In other words, Eve is a step removed from God; she can know the divine primarily through Adam and not in her own right. Nonetheless, opinions about Milton’s view of gender are polarized amongst critics. Milton engages with various stereotypes of Eve, who was often used as a justification for the inferiority and subordination of women. Yet, once Eve has fallen in Book 9, Adam remembers Eve as the “last and best / Of all Gods works” and chooses to fall with her.53 David Boocker argues that situating Milton’s view of Eve in the context of how early modern women themselves wrote about and defended Eve, Milton participates “in the seventeenth-century debate on the role of woman and shows that his views on women were in keeping with progressive views of his day.”54 Although Milton may not be a feminist in the modern sense of the word, he frames Adam and Eve as moral equals. For example, Boocker points out that “God makes no distinction between the Fall of Adam and Eve: ‘[...] Man falls deceiv’d’ (3:130). By ‘Man,’ God means both Adam and Eve, making it clear that at least from His perspective, Adam and Eve are moral equals before the Fall. [...] God’s discourse, which places moral blame on Adam and Eve, is feminist.”55 Hence, Eve was not created to simply fulfill Adam’s needs and desires. Although Milton’s views of gender do not fit within a contemporary feminist discourse, he elevates the status of Renaissance women by making Eve intelligent, heroic and morally equivalent to Adam.
23It is notable that Milton and More both felt the need to distance themselves from the revolutionary implications of their texts. For example, More’s story of a communist society has the appearance of nonfiction where More himself appears as a character simply reporting travel accounts of a fascinating explorer he met named Raphael, who had visited Utopia. Thus, it is significant that More in the story is skeptical of the utopian society that Raphael describes as well as Raphael’s radicalism. Indeed, while he ends his story with the utmost admiration of Raphael, he asserts: “I cannot perfectly agree to everything he has related.”56 More thus distances himself from the most radical implications of the text since by claiming he does not entirely agree with the society (even though he as the author has created it). Nonetheless, the numerous reprints and translation of this text during the Renaissance and beyond demonstrates how creative power and the imagination allows for authors and readers to desire a radically different political world even if such desires were dangerous in real life. Similarly, Milton’s Paradise Lost discusses the merits of revolution, more egalitarian politics, and elevates the status of Eve, who was deemed representative of all women. Yet, Milton himself asserts in the opening that his writing is entirely led and inspired by a Heavenly Muse. Hence, similar to More, Milton also distances himself from the more radical beliefs in the text since it is the Heavenly Muse who guides his thinking and writing and many revolutionary ideas are voiced by the fallen angels. Perhaps these authors distance themselves from their utopian ideas because such ideas are presented as desirable, and could thus be threatening to political authority. While Cavendish does not disclaim or distance herself from the opinions of The Convent of Pleasure, she nonetheless concludes her play with the destruction of the convent and a restoration of patriarchy whereby Lady Happy is married and becomes an increasingly silent and passive character. Hence, Cavendish’s most subversive ideas have been safely destroyed by the end of the play.
24While authors may have felt the need to distance themselves from the most radical implications of their utopian texts that were inspired by Epicurus, it is significant that a philosophy which warned against pursuing certain objects of desire held many ethical implications, which could facilitate different understandings of gender. For example, Epicurus’s belief that one should avoid pursuing wealth and power served as an impetus to rethink the morality of feudal politics based upon the acquisition of land and wealth, an economic system which leads to vast inequality and the impoverishment of most people. While More, Cavendish and Milton portray different utopian worlds where women’s roles were different than their own society, a closer look at their engagement with Epicureanism demonstrates how an interpretation of our relationship to objects of desire was being used to rethink the nature and origins of a just society, which held significant implications for the status of women. Both More and Milton, for example, portray utopia as the elimination of gold and wealth whereas Cavendish’s utopia is one where men and marriage are the desirable objects to be avoided. All three authors suggest that a reevaluation of objects deemed desirable can lead to radical or even revolutionary ways of challenging social hierarchy. As Renaissance utopias demonstrate, such ideas open up new avenues for thinking about gender and how society could be organized. Perhaps these are some of the reasons why a number of seventeenth and eighteenth-century women authors were attracted to this philosophy and helped disseminate and promote its principles.
Notes de bas de page
1 Greenblatt, S., The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, London, Vintage Books, 2011, p. 23-50.
2 Ibid., Back cover.
3 Loc. cit.
4 Wilson, C., Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 262.
5 Epicurus explains that the “removal of all feeling of pain is the limit of the magnitude of pleasures.” Epicurus, “The Principal Doctrines,” in B. Inwood and L. P. Gerson (trans. and eds.), The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, 1994, p. 32.
6 Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, trans. F. O. Copley, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 2011, Book II.
7 Barbour, R., English Epicures and Stoics: Ancient Legacies in Early Stuart Culture, Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press, 1998, p. 14.
8 Logan, G. M., Utopia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016.
9 More, however, does not discuss atomism in the text.
10 More, T., Utopia, G. M. Logan (ed.), trans. R. M. Adams, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016, p. 70, 71.
11 Ibid., p. 70.
12 Ibid., p. 73.
13 Ibid., p. 65.
14 Ibid., p. 72.
15 Ibid., p. 66.
16 Ibid., p. 77.
17 de Busleyden, J., “Letter to More, Antwerp, Nov. 1516,” in More, T., Utopia, op. cit., p. 130.
18 More, T., Utopia, op. cit., p. 107.
19 Wilson, C., Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity, op. cit., p. 185.
20 Barbour, R., English Epicures and Stoics: Ancient Legacies in Early Stuart Culture, op. cit., p. 2.
21 Epicurus, “Letter to Herodotus,” in B. Inwood and L. P. Gerson, op. cit., p. 7.
22 Hutchinson, D. S., “Introduction,” Ibid., p. vi-x and Epicurus, ibid., p. 29.
23 Ibid., p. ix and Epicurus, ibid., p. 13-14.
24 Greenblatt, S., The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, op. cit., p. 6.
25 More, T., Utopia, op. cit., p. 85.
26 Ibid., p. 61.
27 Ibid., p. 89 and 64. It is worth noting that “the chains and heavy shackles of slaves are also made of these metals.” While the contradictory notion of slavery in Utopia is beyond the scope of this paper, it is nonetheless significant that slaves are bound by gold, associating wealth with a lack of freedom. Utopia was written before England was a major colonial power. Hence, Utopian slaves are criminals accused of heinous crimes, prisoners of war or people who “voluntary choose slavery” to escape poverty in their home countries. No child is born into slavery in Utopia. Ibid., p. 81-82.
28 Larsen, A. R., Anna Maria Van Schurman, “The Star of Utrecht”: The Education Vision and Reception of a Savante, New York, Routledge, 2016, p. 96.
29 Kroll, R., The Material Word: Literate Culture in The Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century, Chicago, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991, p. 9.
30 Cicero, Three Books Touching the Nature of the Gods, Done into English, London, 1683, p. 52. Leontium (or Leontion) was likely a leader in the ancient Epicurean community. See Taylor, J. E., Jewish Women Philosophers of First-Century Alexandria: Philo’s “Therapeutae,” Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003.
31 Barbour, R., English Epicures and Stoics: Ancient Legacies in Early Stuart Culture, op. cit., p. 60.
32 Battigelli, A., Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind, Lexington, University Press of Kentucky, 1998, p. 46.
33 Sarasohn, L., The Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish: Reason and Fancy during the Scientific Revolution, Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, p. 15.
34 Whitaker, K., Mad Madge: The Extraordinary Life of Margaret Cavendish, New York, Basic Books, 2002, p. 315.
35 Evelyn, J., qtd. in Whitaker, K., op. cit., p. 315.
36 Epicurus, “Letter to Herodotus,” in B. Inwood and L. P. Gerson, op. cit., p. 8.
37 I discuss Cavendish’s evolving views of atoms in more detail in Walters, L., Margaret Cavendish: Gender, Science and Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 88.
38 Cavendish, M., “The Convent of Pleasure (1668),” in S. Bowerbank and S. Mendelson (eds.), Paper Bodies: A Margaret Cavendish Reader, Peterborough, Broadview Press, 2000, p. 100.
39 Ibid., p. 103.
40 Ibid., p. 104.
41 Ibid., p. 111-117.
42 Wilson, C., Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity, op. cit., p. 37.
43 Milton, J., Paradise Lost, Oxford, Oxford University Press, Book 2, line 918.
44 Ibid., lines 891-900.
45 Ibid., line 910.
46 Greenblatt, S., op. cit., p. 188.
47 Milton, J., Paradise Lost, op. cit., Book 2, lines 916-17.
48 Achinstein, S., “Toleration in Milton’s Epics: A Chimera ?” in S. Achinstein and E. Sauer (eds.), Milton & Toleration, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 234.
49 Milton, J., Paradise Lost, op. cit., Book 1, lines 690-91.
50 Ibid., Book 1, lines 714-718. It is worth noting, however, that Milton portrays gold and jewels in Heaven though such items are not described with the same detail and depth as their Hellish counterparts. Nonetheless, the ideal human society, Eden, does not have these items. See Ibid., Book 1, line 682 and Book 3, lines 352 and 365.
51 Ibid., Book 4, line 132.
52 Ibid., Book 4, line 296.
53 Ibid., Book 9, lines 896-7.
54 Boocker, D., “Milton and the Woman Controversy,” in P. H. Payne (ed.), A Search for Meaning: Critical Essays on Early Modern Literature, New York, Peter Lang, 2004, p. 126.
55 Ibid., p. 135.
56 More, T., Utopia, op. cit., p. 85.
Auteur
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Lisa Walters
Professeur en études anglaises, university of Quensland, Australie
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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