ABSTRACT

In the opening lines of “The Poetresses Hasty Resolution,” which serves as a preface to Poems and Fancies (1653), Margaret Cavendish makes it appear that she was too blinded by “selfe-love” to be able to judge the quality of her own work when she first wrote and published the book: Reading my Verses, I like’t them so well, Selfe-love did make my Judgement to rebell Thinking them so good, I thought more to write; Considering not how others would them like. I writ so fast, I thought, if I liv’d long, A Pyramid of Fame to build thereon. 1