Abstract
This article questions the notion that Cavendish's female communities in these plays are autonomously-imagined feminist Utopias or that their emphasis on withdrawal from society constitutes a gesture of political quietism. Confronting the view that her plays have no identifiable sources the author shows how they draw on plays of the 1630s which register the Caroline courtly interest in feminine retreat. She argues that a sense of the way in which the political resonances of feminine retreat alter in the changing political landscape of the 1650s is essential to a proper understanding of Cavendish's redeployment of such a motif. As closet drama her plays draw on royalist reformulations of public and private spheres catalysed by the experiences of exile and a stateless ruler. The specific importance of the Interregnum context to Cavendish's plays is reinforced by contrast with the treatment of female withdrawal in the drama of her step-daughters written during the 1640s.
Published Version
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