1. Fetch the Bolt Cutters served as inspiration for this playlist. When I listened to it after attending our first class talking about Margaret Cavendish, I couldn’t help but imagine Cavendish had written the song. The central line of the chorus, “Fetch the bolt cutters, I’ve been in here too long” symbolizes the cage Fiona feels she was put into as a young woman in Hollywood’s exclusive music industry. At 42, Apple’s “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” reflects on her early days in the industry, before she understood her own power, when she let older, masculine voices take advantage of her life. Fiona Apple states that in the industry as much as in life, people in power defined what she was capable of. Fiona states “I grew up in the shoes they told me I could fill / Shoes that were not made for running up that hill / And I need to run up that hill, I need to run up that hill / I will, I will, I will, I will, I will” detailing the struggle Apple had with society labeling her has only having so much potential, or only being capable of filling small shoes (. By fetching the metaphorical bolt cutters, Fiona Apple takes control of her own narrative, where she chooses to make her voice heard despite all the circumstances, both past and present, that prevent her from living her own truth. Over 350 years earlier, Margaret Cavendish faced a similar struggle when attempting to pursue her interests in science, philosophy, and writing because of the strongly patriarchal society she was born into. Despite being at a disadvantage due to her sex, Margaret Cavendish used the power she did have as a wealthy royalist with a supportive husband, to support her endeavors, and more importantly not let her gender identity get in the way of what she did.
2. Mitski’s “Me and My Husband” holds two potential symbolic similarities to Margaret Cavendish’s life, and the narrative of The Blazing World, as both a celebration of supportive lovers, and a denoucement of the traditional gender norms. In “Me and My Husband” Mitski sings about a husband who she is learning to love and support, repeating throughout the song “Me and My Husband / We are doing better,” and through all the ups and downs of Mitski’s life, she has her husband by her side to support her. I thought this image of a developing marriage was reminiscent of Cavendish’s relationship with her husband. Although Cavendish was unable to do everything she wanted, she was able to pursue many of her interests through the money and power her husband had. William Newcastle enabled Margaret Cavendish to publish her writings (with her name on them) in a time where works by women were not even considered by publishers, and therefore Cavendish and her husband are the reason we get to read The Blazing World today. The ironic thing about the song, is that the singer and songwriter, Mitski, is not married, nor does she have a long time lover. In writing “Me and My Husband” Mitski plays on the irony of the situation to prove a point of how toxic the idea of needing a husband, and needing someone to belong to is an essential part of life. Mitski emphasizes this with the lines where she sings “It’s always been just him and me / Together / So I bet all I have on that / Furrowed brow” which creates the allusion of dependance on her husband, and a lack of her existence in a time before her husband came into her life (Mitski). Mitski asserts her point by displaying exactly what she doesn’t want in her life: a dominant husband who will sink her worth down to that of a suburban housewife. Margaret Cavendish expresses a similar desire, even though she is married, she doesn’t let her marriage hinder her other plans in life. Unlike most other women of the period, Cavendish pursued science, writing, and philosophy long after her marriage, and even used her status as a married woman to boost her credibility instead of sap her individuality.
3. Lesley Gore was challenging the norm in her music far earlier than anybody else listed on this mixtape, similar to Margaret Cavendish, who dedicated her life to challenging the patriarchal norm hundreds of years before the feminist movement would emerge. Both Margaret Cavendish and Lesley Gore were trailblazers in their own medium, with Cavendish publishing her writing, and Gore writing and performing songs within a music industry centralized around men. The lines in Gore’s 1963 hit also mirror many of the events on the first two pages of The Blazing World, where Cavendish’s “Lady” is stolen from her home by two merchant men who have fallen so in love with her they resort to stealing her, despite the lady being quite clearly disinterested. “You don’t own me / Don’t try to change me in any way / You don’t own me / Don’t tie me down ’cause I’d never stay” Gore sings in the chorus of the song, expressing a desire to have autonomy over herself and her body. When the merchants steal the Lady away from her home, they are violating her rights as an individual by claiming her as theirs and taking her with them. When the gods froze the two men to death, and spared the Lady (who then went on to travel to The Blazing World), the tone of the narrative shifted from powerlessness to authority, similar to “You Don’t Own Me,” where in the final lyrics of the song, Gore sings “I’m young, and I love to be young / I’m free and I love to be free / To live my life the way I want / To say and do whatever I please” which reflect a recognition of the power in an individual, and the rise above the boundaries that femininity was traditionally put into. Similarly, the Lady gains her power and individuality only after the death of her captors, upon her entry into The Blazing World, symbolizing a metaphorical passage into freedom with a literal transition out of this world, and into a new one.
4. Margaret Cavendish explains in her introduction to The Blazing World that part of her reason for writing her novel is she has “neither power, time nor occasion to conquer the world” so she writes “…rather than not be a mistress of one, since Fortune and the Fates would give me none, I have made a world of my own” of which she does, and through her protagonist, Margaret Cavendish rules over The Blazing World which she created (p. 124). If Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World was adapted into a movie, the soundtrack that would play after her Lady becomes the Empress would have to be Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls).” The song is not only a cornerstone of woman empowerment in the music world, but also an accurate depiction of how Margaret Cavendish runs the world she creates. Beyoncé sings “My persuasion can build a nation / Endless power, with our love we can devour” a testament to the strength and creativity women possess that often goes overlooked, but is valuable to greater society in ways potentially never seen before do to the idea that women should be limited to lower spheres of influence instead of running the world.
5. In Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World many fantastical elements and experiences are explored through the lens of the main protagonist, the Empress. One of the most visceral moments of magic is when the Empress discusses souls with the spirits. After finding out that souls can exist separately from mortal bodies, the Empress visits with other souls out of the mortal plane in a sort of cosmic fashion. When I heard Angel Olsen’s “Some things Cosmic,” I thought that her song was written about the experience Margaret Cavendish describes the Empress having. The description, “I felt my soul rise up from my body / When I look into your blue eyes / If cosmic force is real at all / It’s come between you and I / I want to be naked / I don’t mean my body / I don’t need my body” I could almost see the Empress mingling with the Duchess of Newcastle’s soul after finding out about souls and reality from the spirits (pp. 175-181). The moments that mirror the lyrics Olsen wrote happen first when the Empress asks “whether there were any figures or characters in the soul,” and the spirits responded “there was no body” therefore “there could be no figure” (Cavendish 175). Then, the Empress asks “whether spirits could be naked” to which the spirits answered that they had no bod (175). Lastly, those two questions and the curiosity of the Empress results in a beautiful moment between the Empriss and the Duchess, where they “embraced and saluted…with a spiritual kiss” a description that near perfectly matches the emotions in Olsen’s song about relationships on a cosmic scale.
6. Ariana Grande’s “God is a woman” aims to put all women into a place of divinity, rather than on the sidelines. Margaret Cavensdish also does this when she casts her protagonist, the Lady, as the empress and all-around ruler of The Blazing World shortly after her entry. In fact, upon first setting eyes on the Lady, the emperor “conceived her to be some goddess, and offered to worship her” (Cavendish 132). Beyond the parallels of comparing women and divinity, Grande and Cavendish both have similar aims for their creations: to break the glass ceiling that women of society are typically trapped beneath. In the music video for “God is a woman,” Grande at one point stands in a room with a glass ceiling while holding a sledgehammer, which she precedes to throw upward shattering the glass ceiling above. Grande’s message repeats in her lyrics, where she declares “I can be all the things you told me not to be” which references the misogyny in the music industry, and the lack of confidence and trust society puts in female performers. Grande and Cavendish both create bold art to challenge the social norm, and assert themselves (among the rest of the women in society) as powerful beings.
7. I had to end this mixtape with Fiona Apple again because I cannot emphasize enough how much Apple and Cavendish would have gotten along had they lived in the same time. Apple shares the same radical individuality and beautiful composition skills as Cavendish, and both are huge proponents of feminism. In “Ladies” Apple writes retrospectivly about her dislike of other women in the past who may have dated her ex-boyfriends, or achieved things women did not. After reflecting on her attitude, Apple realized that her feelings of contempt didn’t come from true hatred, but rather internalized misogyny in order to pit women against their own allies. “Ladies” encourages women to support each each other instead of tearing each other down, and argues that women would be happier and more supported if women supported other women. The song calls all ladies to attention by repeating the phrase throughout, but but especially at the beginning and the end. Fiona Apple’s repetition of the phrase “ladies” mirrors the form of Cavendish’s The Blazing World, where she begins by addressing her audience, but gives a special shoutout to her “noble female friends,” of whom she wishes nothing but plentiful diamonds for them. Apple describes this affect of women being turned against each repeated as a “revolving door that keeps turning out more and more good women like you” a cycle that both Apple and Cavendish attempt to halt, and instead replace with women supporting women (Apple). Fiona Apple puts it better: “Nobody can replace anybody / So it would be a shame to make it a competition / And no love is like any other love / so it would be insane to make a comparison.”