ABSTRACT
The Unnatural Tragedy, which portrays archetypal characters with names like Monsieur Frere, Monsieur Pere and Madam Soeur, engages incest precisely at this structural level; however, it adds insights and permutations to the incest theme that arise out of the experience of civil war and regicide. The main differences between Measure for Measure and The Unnatural Tragedy, of course, is that the former ends with order restored and marriages all around, while the latter ends with a violent rape and murder. Margaret Cavendish’s point in this plot is clear: “nature” has very little to do with a wholesome and successful marriage, which is a social institution designed precisely to contain nature and give it useful direction. A happy woman in Cavendish’s view is one who is freed from concerns about political participation to engage instead in cultural production, sheltered by her appropriately obedient and subordinate relationships to male figures like husbands or Bards.
