Previous
To the Reader
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Blazing World, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fiction, Fancy, and Utopia
Gender Hierarchy and Women’s Freedom
Monarchy and Government
Philosophy, Science, and Religion
Love and Friendship
Summary
Analysis
A traveling merchant sailor falls in love with a wealthy young noblewoman in a foreign land. The Lady will never marry him because of his low status, so he abducts her. This angers the gods, who send a giant storm to sweep his ship towards the icy North Pole. The merchant and his crew freeze to death, but the gods save the young Lady. At the North Pole, this world meets with “another Pole of another world.” This other world orbits its own sun, but always remains perfectly parallel to our world. It also isn’t visible from our world because the sun blocks it out.
The Blazing World begins with a parody of medieval romance: instead of showing a hero court a noblewoman or save a damsel in distress, it shows the merchant brutally kidnap the Lady, who will become the story’s true hero. Cavendish uses this twist to hint that the tropes of romance fiction—like the strapping, virtuous man courting the passive, powerless woman—often actually function to justify patriarchy in the real world. In turn, this speaks to her deep interest in the purpose of fiction: if ordinary romances reinforce society’s gender inequality, then can women’s literature and science fiction help challenge it?
Themes
The boat crosses over into this other world, and it sails down a stream between two ice-covered landmasses. The young Lady sees a group of bear-like creatures that walk on two legs, like humans, and speak an unfamiliar language. The creatures approach the boat, carry the young Lady off it, and then sink it, with the sailors’ bodies onboard. The Lady is frightened, but the creatures actually treat her kindly. They carry her to their city, which is really a complex of underground caves. All the creatures in the city assemble to meet her, and the females take her to a special cave and care for her.
Cavendish’s protagonist enters a world that is parallel to her own, yet nevertheless belongs to the same universe. This Blazing World operates according to its own laws of nature, but still resembles our own in many fundamental ways. For instance, the bear-human hybrid creatures show that biology and reproduction function differently in the Blazing World, but they still live in the cold polar region, which shows that weather, ecology, and the basic physics of heat are likely the same in the Blazing World as in our own. Cavendish’s choices about what to change and what to leave the same in the Blazing World are significant, because they point to the elements of her own world that she hopes could be different.
Themes
The “bear-men” realize that the Lady isn’t used to the cold climate, so they take her to a warmer island, where the “fox-men” live. The bear-men and fox-men agree to bring the Lady to their Emperor. They take her across a river to the gooselike bird-men, across another to the satyrs, and then across a third to a kingdom of green-colored people. All of the groups get along and speak the same language.
Themes
The bear-men, fox-men, bird-men, satyrs, and green people sail the Lady across the sea to the Emperor’s island. Their navigation techniques and knowledge of the sea are excellent, even though they don’t have the technology that seafarers use on Earth. Instead, they have giant engines that shoot out wind to flatten waves and propel their ships forward, and they make special formations to weather storms. Their ships are made of gold and leather, but light and seaworthy. Recognizing her hosts’ generosity, the Lady starts to calm down and learn their language.
Get the entire The Blazing World LitChart as a printable PDF.
The fleet reaches the Emperor’s land, which is ringed by steep cliffs. Another fleet of boats sets out from the shore to meet the Lady. The narrator explains that the Blazing World is harmonious and peaceful because everyone submits to the same Emperor. The fleet brings the Lady down a series of narrow, winding rivers to the fertile, beautiful area where the Emperor lives. On the way, they pass a number of cities made of precious stones.
Themes
Literary Devices
Paradise, the Emperor’s city, is built on canals and full of golden buildings in monumental classical architecture. The Emperor’s palace is at the top of a hill, ringed by a four-mile-long arch and guarded by guards at regularly-spaced gates. Inside the palace, the Emperor’s apartment is made of precious stones, including many different kinds of diamonds that don’t exist in our world.
Themes
Literary Devices
When the Emperor meets the Lady, he thinks that she is a goddess—but she explains that she isn’t. He marries her instead and gives her “absolute power to rule and govern all [the blazing] world.” Her royal subjects continue to worship her like a goddess. Once declared Empress, she wears clothing made of pearls and diamonds, which clearly identify her as royalty.
The Emperor and Empress have infinite gold and jewels, and they oversee an extensive barter economy. Their kingdom’s common people aren’t of any familiar complexion—instead, they’re various shades of green, purple, red, and orange. The blazing world is also full of numerous inhabitants of other “sorts, shapes, figures, dispositions, and humors.” This includes the bear-men and fox-men, but also many other groups, including the worm-men, lice-men, magpie-men, giants, and many others. Each group works in a profession fit for its species, and they all have highly advanced art, science, and institutions. For example, the bear-men are experimental philosophers, the bird-men are astronomers, the fox-men are politicians, and the giants are architects.
Themes
Literary Devices
The Empress asks the statesmen and priests to tell her about the kingdom’s government and religion. The statesmen explain that the kingdom has few laws because laws cause conflict, and that it’s an absolute monarchy because bodies (including kingdoms) naturally have one head. Just as the people worship just one God, they obey just one Emperor. While the subjects attend many different churches, the priests explain, they all worship the same God and say the same prayers. Men worship together in public, while women worship alone in private, and the priests and statesmen are eunuchs because marriage would distract them from their duties.
Themes
Literary Devices
Next, the architects tell the Empress that the kingdom’s houses are built low to protect them from the elements, with thick walls to help them regulate temperature, and with arches and pillars to make them sturdy and beautiful.
Themes
The bird-men (who are astronomers) tell the Empress about their world’s splendid sun and sparkling moon, which are both made of stone. They don’t yet know if the sun generates heat because it’s burning, or because its motion creates light. They debate whether air densities explain the sun and moon’s changing appearances and positions. They agree that motes (floating particles lit up by the sun) are tiny living creatures. They also know about many other “blazing stars” besides the sun and moon, which is why they call their world the Blazing World.
Themes
Literary Devices
The bird-men offer various theories about how heat and air density create wind, and they declare that snow is a frothy mixture of water and fire from the moon. Meanwhile, the fish-men have discovered that ice is made of water mixed with vapor from the seas. The bird-men debate how hot, cold, and clouds mix to create thunder and lightning.
Themes
The Empress asks the bear-men (natural philosophers) to test the bird-men’s theories with their telescopes, but the bear-men all disagree about the motions of the sun and earth, the number and size of the stars, and more. She sends the bear-men to the pole that connected to her original world, and they report seeing three blazing stars there—two bright and one dim. But they can’t agree whether they have seen three different stars, or just the same star in different positions. The Empress orders the bear-men to break their telescopes, which have only deceived them. But the bear-men humbly plead with her to let them keep the telescopes, which delight them, and she agrees.
The bear-men thank the Empress by taking out a microscope and showing her several extraordinary small objects, like a fly’s composite eyes, the pores in a piece of charcoal, a poisonous nettle, a flea, and a louse. She asks if they can also magnify large objects—they look at a whale through the microscope, but it's too large. Instead, at the Empress’s command, they create a reverse microscope that makes the whale look tiny. They also try to make a looking glass that will let them see vacuums, but they fail.
Themes
Literary Devices
Next, the fish-men and worm-men tell the Empress about animals in the sea and on land. The fish-men discuss the salt in the sea, which they claim causes waves, and the circulatory systems of different sea-creatures. The worm-men tell her that, like sea-creatures, some insects have blood and others don’t. They conclude that animals’ blood doesn’t actually carry their spirits. They explain that some animals can live both on land and in the water because they’re part fish and part flesh. This is possible because nature has adapted their respiratory systems to their unique habitats.
Themes
The Empress asks about reproduction, and the worm- and fish-men also explain that, in some animals, the offspring look just like the parent, but in others, the offspring takes a different form—like the way cheese gives birth to maggots. They also explain that different animals perceive the world differently—although it’s difficult to understand how. Finally, they agree with the fish- and bird-men’s theory that salt mixes with water to create ice and snow—but the Empress wonders what happens to the salt when ice melts back into water.
Themes
The worm- and fish-men debate whether springs shrink and grow over time because of underground water flows, or because of particles in the water. They argue that spring water is fresh because of heat deep in the earth, and that different amounts of heat produce different minerals, which accounts for their unequal distribution around the planet. For instance, gold appears in moderately (but not extremely) hot zones inside the planet.
Themes
The Empress asks the ape-men (who are chemists) to test the hypothesis that moderate heat creates gold, and they speculate whether it’s possible to make different metals artificially. The ape-men also report that, unlike with animals, they can’t predict the movements of vegetables and minerals. The Empress suggests using the bear-men’s microscopes to look closer. The bear-men say they can’t see inside the Earth, where there’s no light, but the worm-men note that they can perceive other creatures inside the Earth—although microscopes won’t help them.
Themes
The Empress asks the worm-men whether minerals are colorless, but the worm-men say that everything has to have a color, because otherwise it would be nothing at all. In fact, by nature every physical thing must have a color, shape, place, weight, and so on. Their wise discourse impresses the Empress, who asks whether there is anything without qualities inside the Earth. They explain that seeds, while small and imperceptible, multiply and grow into larger organisms by mixing with other substances. But if the Empress wants to know about non-beings, the worm-men say, she has to ask the immaterial spirits. The Empress asks where forms come from, and they respond that “nature is eternal and infinite,” so forms have always existed. The worm-men also tell the Empress about how different species work together to create mixed species, like weeds—which kill worms.
The Empress next meets with the ape-men, who explain how they have found that all natural bodies are made of a few basic elements. Some think these basic elements are air, water, earth, and fire, but others disagree. The Empress replies that, in her view, nature is all “one infinite self-moving body” which is “divided into infinite [constantly-changing] parts.” Rather than trying to figure out the basic elements of nature, the Empress says, the ape-men should do experiments that actually benefit other people.
The ape-men tell the Empress how the imperial people live for hundreds of years, without seeming to age. They use a special natural gum from the desert that makes them vomit out toxins and shed their skin. If wrapped in a cloth for nine months afterward, they are reborn with the body and strength of a 20-year-old. They also only drink water from limestone and eat fowl. The Empress is amazed—she has heard legends of the philosopher’s stone, which cures diseases, but never a way to reverse aging.
Themes
The Empress next assembles the anatomists, herbalists, and satyrs (who are followers of the ancient Greek physician Galen). The herbalists describe how their herbs cure people, which means that these herbs must have reason and wisdom. The Empress asks the anatomists to dissect monsters for her, but they refuse, as doing so won’t prevent nature from making more monsters. Next, the Galenic physicians explain how a highly infectious kind of internal gangrene causes the plague. They still haven’t reached consensus about whether the plague spreads because small particles jump from person to person, or because one person’s particles start imitating the motion of an infected person’s.
Themes
The Empress talks with several other groups. The spider-men (mathematicians) show her their designs of lines and shapes, but the Empress doesn’t understand them. The lice-men (geometricians) try to weigh air, but the Empress finds this ridiculous and forces them to stop practicing.
Themes
The magpie-, parrot-, and jackdaw-men (orators and logicians) are next, but one of the parrot-men gets confused during a complicated speech and publicly humiliates himself. The Empress tells the orators to focus less on eloquence and more on ideas. Next, the logicians present her with several syllogisms about the wisdom of politicians and knaves, beasts and philosophers. The Empress stops them and tells the logicians that, while reason is noble and valuable, they are misusing it and wasting their time. The logicians reply that their art is necessary for understanding the perfection in nature, but the Empress says that most of nature is imperfect—besides God—and she never wants to see the logicians again.
The Empress concludes that all the people in this world have a defective religion, as they have no knowledge of God. She decides to build churches and convert everyone to her own religion. She teaches a large cohort of women the basics of her faith, and they gradually convert everyone in the kingdom, which makes the Empress a beloved leader. Still, she starts to worry that her people will forget the nature of God, so she looks for ways to reinforce their faith.
Themes
The bird-men tell the Empress about a mountain that burns because a rock inside it bursts into flame when it’s wet. She has the worm-men bring her the rock. She also asks the bird-men to bring her part of the sun—and while they can’t, they offer to bring her a piece of a different star instead. The Empress builds two chapels, one of wet fire-stone and one of star-stone. In the dark night, both chapels emit a brilliant light and rotate slowly in opposite directions. The Empress preaches about sin and terror in the hellish fire-stone chapel, and repentance and salvation in the heavenly star-stone chapel. Using her chapels, the Empress get the Blazing World’s inhabitants to continue believing in her religion, without coercion or violence.
Next, the Empress starts to wonder about the state of her own original world. She decides that the only way to learn about it is by sending immaterial spirits to find out. The worm-men tell her that there are no such spirits underground, but the fly-men affirm that there are in the air, and they set up a meeting between the spirits and the Empress. The spirits tell the Empress about her homeland, friends, and acquaintances. She asks them about Cabbalist philosophy, and they tell her about how the writer Ben Jonson mocked the Cabbalists in his play The Alchemist. The Empress remembers seeing the play, and she asks the spirits whom the different characters represent. But the spirits have forgotten.
Themes
The Empress is surprised to learn that spirits have memories and can forget, but the spirits explain that they wouldn’t be able to know anything about the present without memory. The Empress points out that the spirits can predict the future without knowing it, so they should be able to describe the past without memory. But they explain that, in reality, they only predict the future based on their detailed knowledge of the present and past.
Themes
The Empress continues asking the spirits about the Cabbala. She asks how many parts it has—usually two, respond the spirits. She asks what kind it is—and the spirits say it’s a mix of traditional and scriptural, as well as of literal, philosophical, and moral. She asks whether it comes from human reason or divine inspiration, and the spirits respond that many Cabbalists claim to be divinely inspired, but it’s impossible to know whether or not this is true. The spirits also note that Cabbalas are based on faith, not reason—and many human philosophers tend to confuse the two. Only philosophers who study mysticism and divinity, rather than sense and reason, are true Cabbalists.
Themes
The Empress next asks whether God is made of Ideas or Cabbala. The spirits respond that God can’t be made of anything, because he’s God, and he’s perfect beyond the understanding of any living being. They go on to tell her that the Cabbala isn’t made of numbers, and it isn’t sinful to be ignorant of the Cabbala, because God is merciful. They explain that the theological Cabbala is superior to the natural one because it’s based on faith instead of reason, and that this faith comes from God’s “divine saving grace.” Although faith and reason are different, the spirits clarify, people can still have both reasoned opinions about the world and faith in God. But they cannot directly know God through reason—after all, people have all sorts of contradictory beliefs about God.
Next, the Empress asks the spirits whether they are what make physical beings move, and they say no—in fact, spirits can only move because the physical bodies they inhabit do. Yet the spirits can move fast over long distances when they inhabit bodies made of a special, pure, extremely light kind of matter. Since they have no bodies, the spirits have no direct knowledge of nature—instead, their knowledge is supernatural. But it's not perfect and universal, since only God can have such knowledge. Because the spirits don’t have any physical parts, the Empress agrees that they were right to say that bodies move them, and not vice-versa.
Themes
The bodies the spirits inhabit are formed of many different kinds of matter, but the spirits themselves don’t have any inherent body. They can’t be compared to water or fire, which are material. They never leave physical vehicles, although these vehicles can change in form.
Themes
The Empress asks the spirits if people are “little world[s],” and they say yes—so are flies, worms, and other animals. She asks if humans’ ancestors were just as wise, and the spirits say yes. She asks whether Paradise is a place in the world, or a world in itself, and the spirits respond that Paradise is right here, at the place where her palace is located in the imperial city. The Empress asks if all the animals could speak at the beginning of the world, and the spirits say that only the hybrid creatures like the worm-men and bear-men could.
Themes
Literary Devices
The Empress asks the spirits whether they were the ones who drove Adam out of Paradise, and they say no. She asks where Adam went, and they explain that he left the world where she is now for the world where she originally came from. The Empress concludes that the Cabbalists are wrong to think of Paradise as a purely immaterial world, when it’s clearly “a world of living, material creatures.” The Empress asks if the Devil was in the serpent who tempted Eve, and they say yes. Next, she asks if light is the same thing as Heaven, and the spirits explain that the real Heaven is far beyond the mere region that contains the stars.
The spirits also tell the Empress that matter was not all liquid at the beginning of the universe, and it’s impossible to know if the universe was truly made in six days. The spirits reject the Cabbalists’ fanciful speculations about the deeper meanings of numbers, like the idea that six represents marriage and seven represents God. In fact, it’s impossible to represent God, who is perfect and unknowable, because numbers are imperfect. The Empress and the spirits agree that it’s therefore useless to describe the creation of the world through numbers, although numbers can grow to infinity, just like the universe, which has grown out from God’s infinite power.
Themes
The spirits clarify many more of the Empress’s doubts. The Empress asks whether the stars and planets come from the heavens, or from the ether. The spirits respond that, instead, the Empress should be asking where the heavens and ether come from in the first place. This would be the true origin of the stars and planets.
Themes
The Empress asks the spirits about what Plato’s followers call “three principles of man”—the intellect, the soul, and the soul’s effects on the body. The spirits respond that these principles are meaningless, because human reason cannot understand them. The spirits say that there are no true atheists, and they again explain that they are immaterial, but inhabit material forms, including air itself. They explain that there is no world of spirits, since a world must be material and spirits are not. When the Empress asks when spirits were created, the spirits admit that they don’t know, and they argue that the answer simply doesn’t matter because it wouldn’t help mortals at all.
Themes
The spirits tell the Empress that the mortal soul isn’t the same thing as an immaterial spirit, and that it doesn’t matter where Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory are—just that they exist. The Empress asks whether the soul can have a shape (no) and whether spirits can be naked (no, because they don’t have bodies). The spirits also don’t know when human souls were created, but they do believe that souls immediately join new bodies after their original bodies die. They also don’t know if “all matter [is] soulified.” But they do know that, while two immaterial souls cannot share the same body, multiple material souls can—after all, nature is just one enormous material body made of numerous smaller ones.
Themes
The spirits explain that everything physical in the world has three parts: the inanimate part (or body), the sensitive part (or life), and the rational part (or soul). While divine souls and spirits have life without bodies, souls need bodies. The Empress compares the soul to the sun and the body to the moon, but the spirits say it’s the other way around: the body is like the sun and the spirit the moon, because the body gives the spirit its motion (like the sun gives the moon its light).
When the Empress asks whether the serpent tempted Eve because of an evil spirit, the spirits reply that spirits cannot commit evil, so instead, the Empress asks whether supernatural evil exists. The spirits say that it might exist, but it can never be as evil as God is good. The Empress asks whether animals have evil spirits, and the spirits say that animals sometimes do evil things to get food, but are generally less cruel to each other than people are. In fact, beings with good and evil spirits tend to mix together.
Themes
The spirits explain that Heaven is made of light, but not fire, and that the bodies that souls occupy don’t affect whether the souls are happy or not. They don’t know if animals’ souls leave the material world, and they conclude that “natural lives, forms and matter” always stay together in the material world.
Themes
The Empress asks whether the first humans ate better food than the beasts who lived around them, but the spirits respond that the humans and beasts would have all sought out the best natural food that they could find. She asks whether the first man named all the species of fish, and the spirits say no, because he lived on land. Of course, he did name birds (who are “partly airy, and partly earthy creatures”) and all the other animals. The Empress asks about whether the animals that exist now are different from those that existed in the past, and the spirits say yes—but the overall number is the same. They explain that not all the original animals went on Noah’s Ark, but “the principal kinds” did.
Themes
The spirits affirm that humans became miserable because they disobeyed God, but they declare that they don’t know why, and they ask the Empress not to keep inquiring about the topic. The Empress apologizes for her curiosity, but the spirits declare that it’s natural to seek knowledge. The Empress declares that she wants to make her own Jews’ Cabbala, and then the spirits suddenly disappear. This frightens the Empress, who briefly falls into a trance. When she emerges, she starts to wonder why the spirits disappeared. She thinks that perhaps she tired them out with her questions, but she concludes that, actually, they made a mistake in their answers and were being punished for it.
Themes
The Empress tells the worm-men and fly-men that she feels deeply guilty about accidentally getting the spirits banished to the abyss deep within the Earth. The worm-men tell her that the depths of the earth are not so bad a place to live, and she feels slightly better. But she asks the worm-men and fly-men to find the spirits, and they go off looking. The worm- and fly-men soon return and report that the spirits are at the opposite point on the planet from the Empress, and are happy to help with her Cabbala.
Themes
The spirits offer to send the Empress one of their own as a scribe, and she agrees. They ask whose body she wants the scribe to inhabit. She requests a famous ancient writer, like Plato or Aristotle, but the spirits tell her that such men wouldn’t be willing to write down ideas they don’t agree with. She asks for a more recent well-known writer instead, like Descartes or Galileo, but the spirits insist that these men would refuse to be scribes for a woman. Instead, the spirits propose a lady scribe, the “plain and rational” Duchess of Newcastle, and the Empress agrees.
The Duchess of Newcastle appears to the Empress and apologizes for her poor handwriting, but the Empress declares that one of her secretaries will learn to transcribe it. The Duchess proposes that the Empress consult “some famous Jew,” like Moses, to help with her “Jews’ Cabbala,” but the Empress says that she trusts the spirits. However, the Duchess insists that the “spirits are as ignorant as mortals” about many things, and she advises the Empress to leave the work of scriptural interpretation to experts.
Themes
The Empress agrees with the Duchess and decides to write a “philosophical Cabbala,” but the Duchess tells her that the Cabbala must go beyond what can be known with reason. So the Empress proposes a “moral Cabbala” instead, but the Duchess says that morality is nothing more than “to fear God, and to love [one’s] neighbor.” The Empress suggests a “political Cabbala,” but the Duchess says that government is merely based on reward and punishment, so it doesn’t need a Cabbala.
Themes
Instead, the Duchess proposes that the Empress “make a poetical or romancical Cabbala, wherein you can use metaphors, allegories, similitudes, etc. and interpret them as you please.” The Empress agrees and thanks the Duchess, whom she declares her favorite person in the world. She spends some time with the Duchess, then sends her back to her world, but asks her to visit from time to time. They become so close that they turn into Platonic lovers.
On one of her visits to the Empress, the Duchess is visibly upset. She admits that this is because of her “extreme ambition”—she wants to be a princess. But the Empress tells the Duchess that she already outranks princesses, since Dukes and Duchesses are the highest rank that common subjects can achieve. But the Duchess complains that Dukes and Duchesses can never become Emperors and Empresses. The Empress offers to ask the immaterial spirits to help the Duchess become the Empress of her own world. The spirits appear to her.
Themes
The spirits explain that there are an endless number of different worlds, and the Empress asks if the Duchess can become an Empress in one of them. The spirits respond that all the worlds already have their own people and governments. The Empress insists that it must be possible to conquer one of them, but the spirits recommend against conquest, which inevitably makes rulers “more feared than loved” and gets them deposed. The Duchess insists that she wants to give up her boring life for a life of fame and adventure.
Themes
The spirits recommend that, instead of trying to rule over a “terrestrial world,” the Duchess should create her own “celestial world” through imagination. Unlike in a terrestrial world, where monarchs constantly struggle to keep and exercise power, celestial monarchs have total control over every aspect of their worlds. While terrestrial monarchs can’t see most of their worlds or share in their subjects’ pleasures, celestial monarchs can. The Duchess is convinced: she will imagine an immaterial world instead of trying to conquer a material one. In fact, the Empress declares that she wants to do the same.
The spirits leave, and the Duchess and Empress go about creating their celestial worlds. The Duchess tries basing her world on a series of philosophers—Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, Epicurus, Aristotle, Descartes, and Hobbes—but all of these imaginary worlds fall apart. Instead, she tries to build one based on her own ideas, full of “rational self-moving matter.” Its perfection, variety, and beauty “cannot possibly be expressed by words,” and neither can the pleasure she takes in building it.
Meanwhile, the Empress tries and fails to build several worlds of her own. The Duchess shows her world to the Empress, who is so impressed that she wishes she could live in it. But instead, the Duchess helps the Empress build a better world of her own. The Empress imagines a world full of various creatures, effective laws, and beautiful art. After all, she has nothing else to do, because the Blazing World is already so perfect and harmonious.
Themes
The Empress wants to learn about the Duchess’s world, where many different governments live by many different laws. The Duchess warns her that this other world is full of division and conflict, but the Empress persists. She asks the spirits to temporarily replace her soul with an “honest and ingenious [female] spirit” while she goes to visit the Duchess’s world. They agree.
The Empress’s and Duchess’s souls travel together to the Duchess’s native world. The Empress sees how, even though humans belong to many different nations and groups, they are all ambitious, dishonest, and selfish. She appreciates the nations’ desire to expand, but wonders why they are willing to sacrifice so many lives to fight over a little bit of territory. On the other hand, the Empress also resents her own boring, peaceful world. She and the Duchess agree that the best world would find a healthy middle ground between total peace and constant conflict.
The Duchess and Empress go looking for the best nation in the Duchess’s world. The Empress praises the Sultan of Turkey, but the Duchess points out that he can’t change the Islamic laws that his government is bound to follow. The Duchess shows the Empress her own country, England, where the government is smaller but stronger and wiser than Turkey’s, so the people are happier than anywhere else. The Empress sees Londoners go into a theater and decides to follow them. She enjoys the play, but she remarks that the actors seemed too unnatural and wonders why writers keep creating new plays out of the same old stories.
Themes
Next, the Duchess takes the Empress to meet the royal family at court, and the Empress declares that the King and Queen are the most affable, majestic, and divine monarchs she has ever seen. The Duchess is distraught because she misses her husband, and after court, she takes the Empress to meet him. The narrator interrupts to explain that the Duchess’s and Empress’s souls are occupying material bodies made of “the purest and finest sort of air, and of a human shape,” so nobody else can see or hear them.
The Empress and Duchess reach Welbeck, the Duke’s estate in the Nottinghamshire woods. The Empress is impressed by the estate and forest, and the Duchess explains that most of the rest of England’s palaces and forests were destroyed in the Civil War—including the other half of her husband’s estate. The Duchess shows the Empress the Duke’s modest house, and when the Duke walks inside, her airy spirit-vehicle starts to joyously spin around. The Duchess and Empress watch the Duke expertly ride horses and practice sword fighting. But the Duchess worries that the Duke is overexerting himself, so her soul briefly enters his body to see if he’s alright. The Empress’s soul follows.
Themes
The Duchess, Empress, and Duke’s souls are all in the Duke’s body. The Empress adores the Duke’s “wise, honest, witty, complaisant and noble” soul, and the Duchess briefly grows jealous, until she realizes that the Empress’s admiration for the Duke is really a kind of Platonic love. The Duke’s soul sings songs, gives speeches, and plays games to entertain the Empress.
A spirit visits and informs the Empress that she should return to the Blazing World, since her soul is deeply missing the Emperor’s. She agrees to return, but before she goes, the Duchess asks her for a favor: to broker a deal between the Duke and Fortune, who has been unkind to him. But the Empress worries that she won’t be able to find a fair advocate for the Duke, or an impartial judge to hear the case. She asks the Duchess to accompany her to the Blazing World, so that they can try to get the Duke a fair hearing. The Duchess agrees, and the Duke decides to send “two friends, Prudence and Honesty, to plead [his] cause.”
Themes
The Empress and the Duchess return to the Blazing World along with Prudence and Honesty. The spirits go looking for Fortune, but they tell the Duchess that Fortune is too fickle to hear their case. After a long struggle, they convince Truth to judge their dispute.
Themes
In her opening speech, Fortune asks why the Duke’s soul has not come to plead his own case. She declares that the Duke “hath always been my enemy” because he has scorned her for her inconstancy, while preferring Honesty and Prudence over her. Next, the Duchess speaks to defend her husband. She says that he is a respectful gentleman who reasonably decided to side with Honesty and Prudence, instead of trusting Fortune with his valuable reputation. Rather than making peace with him, Fortune actively battled against him, ruining his estate and reputation. But the Duke never stopped respecting Fortune, the Duchess reports, and he asks for his friendship in the future.
Next, Folly and Rashness fight to speak on behalf of Fortune, and Fortune chooses Rashness. Rashness declares that the Duchess continues to insult Fortune by preferring Honesty and Prudence, and she threatens that this will ruin Fortune’s reputation. Rashness recommends that Fortune “fling as many misfortunes and neglects [as possible] on the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle.”
Themes
Then, Prudence declares that she wants to heal the rift between Fortune and the Duke, but Honesty interrupts and declares that everyone should speak “plainly and truly.” Honesty raised the Duke like her foster-son and introduced him to all the other virtues, including Gratitude, Charity, Justice, Honor, and Experience. Honesty claims that Fortune is the Duke’s only enemy, and only because the Duke was too honest to flatter her. But he also never despised her—instead, he treated her with humility, respect, and honor.
Themes
Fortune hates Honesty’s speech, and she disappears in a fury. Honesty tells the Duchess that she is wrong to care so much about “Fortune’s favors” and trying to interfere with the gods’ decisions. The Empress asks what Prudence thinks, and Prudence replies that Honesty has gone too far. The Empress lets the Duchess return to her world, on the condition that she return to visit the Blazing World from time to time.
But just before the Duchess leaves, the Empress asks for her advice about how to govern the Blazing World. Since the Empress changed the religion and form of government, the different groups, like the worm-men and bear-men, have started to fight. The Empress even fears a rebellion. To return the Blazing World to its former state of peace, the Duchess suggests recreating the old system of “one sovereign, one religion, one law, and one language” and eliminating all the specialist factions (the philosopher bear-men, astronomer bird-men, and so on). Education causes conflict, the Duchess argues, because some people always think they know better than others.
The Empress agrees to follow the Duchess’s advice, but she worries that it would seem disgraceful to undo the laws that she created. On the contrary, the Duchess says: if the Empress changes the laws back, she will really be demonstrating wisdom and honor. This will help her achieve “glorious fame in this world, and an eternal glory hereafter.” The Empress’s and Duchess’s souls share “an immaterial kiss, and shed immaterial tears.” They part, but they always remain true Platonic friends.
Themes
Literary Devices
