ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Cavendish’s political views as articulated in The Worlds Olio and the Orations, as well as her representation of female sovereignty in Bell inCampo. It examines Margaret Cavendish’s representation of a female subject in Loves Adventures. The chapter argues that it is in relation to the Shakespearean subtexts of this play—saliently Twelfth Night and Othello, but many others—that Cavendish stakes out her position, distinctive from her authoritative predecessor in dramatic form, concerning the possibility of women as political subjects. In Loves Adventures Cavendish’s conception of Affectionata indicates the difference history makes to gender relations and the political status of women. Cavendish’s interspersal of the “Shakespearean” plotconstructed from many different motifs from numerous playswith her own distinctive subplots which comment on the main plot not only promotes a perspective of critical distance, but also works to level William Shakespeare’s plot with her own more satiric and multiple subplots.
