Intimate Correspondence: Negotiating the Materials of Female Friendship in Margaret Cavendish’s Sociable Letters

Abstract

ABSTRACTMargaret Cavendish’s Sociable Letters is often foreclosed from scholarship on early modern epistolary culture because of its status as a printed, published letter collection written to an imaginary interlocutor. This article seeks to remedy that foreclosure by arguing that Cavendish uses Sociable Letters, and the female friendship within its pages, to intervene in epistolary traditions and negotiate alternatives for the conventional markers of intimacy between correspondents. Grounding the argument in various models of early modern epistles and current scholarly debates on familiar letter conventions, the author demonstrates that Cavendish both capitalizes on and manipulates the standard temporal structures of epistolary exchange. Through a close analysis of several letters in the collection, the author finds that memory and shared personal history emerge as key components to Cavendish’s proposed modes of intimacy. Ultimately, the fictional friendship between female correspondents in Sociable Letters contributes provocative new insights to scholarly arguments on Cavendish's authorial mode, and discussions on early modern letters and the relationships scripted within their pages.