Identity In Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World

Within the realm of mankind, it can often become difficult to escape, whether in mind or body, the bonds of cultural normalcy. Different cultures surround everyone on earth, with each managing to become ingrained into the thoughts and actions of its people. Eventually, many of these cultural aspects can become so integral to a person’s identity that it becomes difficult for them to imagine anything different. However, as demonstrated in Margaret Cavendish’s "To the Reader" section of "The Blazing World,” literature provides a path of liberation. The “Blazing World,” as she calls it, is a “world of [her] own creating,” which serves to “divert [her] studious thoughts…and to divert the reader with variety” (). Literature plays an important role

Literature has a great deal to offer when it comes to discovering more about the unexplored nature of the world. Whether this is in a historical context or the context of our present lives, literature functions to spread the knowledge and ideas of others. Our generation, including the students that surround me, often take for granted many of the ideas that guide our lifestyles. This could include the importance put on education, or the idea that a democracy is the most appropriate form of government for our society. However, at some point, these ideas needed to be questioned and debated before they became part of present culture. Looking at “A Dictionary of the English Language,” it is possible to see the significance of having a unified dictionary. What we take for granted, in the form of online dictionaries and quick internet searches, people once couldn’t conceive even existing. Looking at this work provides a glimpse into how a different time period viewed defining words and phrases. The effect of reading this, at least for myself, is a newfound appreciation for the intricacies of English language. Prior to reading Johnson’s work, I had never given much thought to how the English dictionary came to exist. His work forces readers to contemplate the effort and thought that went into undertaking such a monumental task, while helping them to discover more about an object that they likely paid little attention to in the past. Literature, then, allows for readers to discover unfamiliar aspects of life and about familiar things with significance that would likely have never been