Old Playwrights, Old Soldiers, New Martial Subjects

In letter CXXIII of CCXI Sociable Letters, Margaret Cavendish’s female correspondent defends William Shakespeare from a purported detractor’’that person” who has denounced the dramatist for populating his plays with only “Clowns, Fools, Watchmen, and the like”. This chapter argues that “Old Playwrights,” the Cavendishes’ interest in Shakespeare not only evinces their admiration of his martial representations, but also more emphatically points to each writer’s particular anxieties about military and literary authority. It considers the ways in which Cavendish’s literary soldiers upstage her husband’s military career and redirect the tragic endings of Shakespeare’s late soldier plays. Cavendish’s critic locates Shakespeare’s genius in his ability not only to identify with diverse martial subject positions, but more importantly, to speak from such positions so credibly that readers would believe he actually shared—and improved upon—the identities of his soldiers. The text that most celebrates the transformation is not one of Cavendish’s dramatic works, but rather Orations of Divers Sorts, her collection of speeches

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