About
My present research focuses on connections between the visual arts and Margaret Cavendish’s poetry, fiction, and drama. My sense of visual arts is derived from research into painting, prints, and drawings that were available for Cavendish to see when she lived in Antwerp during the 1650s and in England in the 1660s. She thought of herself as a woman who painted in words and sometimes commented on art as it was collected for and displayed in country houses. She and her husband wrote within (and against) traditions of the representation of art and country houses found in the writings of William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Education
BA Comparative Literature, Occidental College. MA English, California State University, Long Beach. PhD English, The University of Iowa Work Shared in CORE
Articles
Book chapters
Fictional works
Conference papers
Other
Other Publications
Selected Publications
Books
Cavendish and Shakespeare: Interconnections, co-editor with Katherine Romack, Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2006. A collection of essays.
The Sociable Letters of Margaret Cavendish. Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press, 2004.
Major Women Writers of Seventeenth-Century England, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1997. A modern-spelling, scholarly edition suitable for classroom use. Fitzmaurice: General editor; author of introduction. Sections edited by Fitzmaurice: The Rover by Aphra Behn (complete) and Sociable Letters by Margaret Cavendish (selections). With: Josephine Roberts (textual editor). Section editors: James Fitzmaurice, Josephine Roberts, Eugene Cunnar, Nancy Gutierrez, and Carol Barash. Pp. 408. Numerous reprintings.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
“Robert Herrick, Collectors, and the Mediterranean Trade in Art,The Journal of Mediterranean Studies edited by Lisa Hopkins vol, 25, 2016, pp. 65 – 82.
“Whimsy and Medieval Romance in the Life of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle,” in Authority, Authorship and Aristocratic Identity in Seventeenth Century England: William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, and his Political, Social and Cultural Connections, eds. Peter Edwards and Elspeth Graham, Brill, Leiden, 2016, pp. 60 – 82 .
“Walking on Figs: Obama as Young Writer in Literary Los Angeles,” in The Literary Writings of Barack Obama, eds. Henry Veggian and Richard Purcell. Palgrave-Macmillan, 2016, pp. 79-99.
“Paganism, Christianity, and the Faculty of Fancy in the Writing of Margaret Cavendish,” in God and Nature in the Thought of Margaret Cavendish, eds. Brandie Siegfried and Lisa Sarasohn, Ashgate Press, 2014, pp. 77 – 92.
“Margaret Cavendish, Richard Flecknoe, and Raillery at the Salon of Beatrix de Cusdance,” English Studies, vol. 92, no. 7 (November 2011), pp. 771 – 785.
When an Old Ballad is Plainly Sung’: Musical Lyrics in the Plays of Margaret and William Cavendish” in Oral Traditions and Gender in Early Modern Literary Texts, eds. Mary Ellen Lamb and Karen Bamford. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, pp. 153 – 168.
“Historical Linguistics, Literary Interpretation, and the Romances of Margaret Cavendish,” in English Historical Pragmatics: Explorations in Methodology and Data, edited by Irma Taavitsainen and Susan Fitzmaurice. De Gruyter, 2007. pp 267 – 284.
“‘The Lotterie’: A Transcription of a Manuscript Play Probably by Margaret Cavendish,” Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 66 (2003), pp. 155 – 67.
“Fear of the Supernatural as a ‘Pleasante and Merry Humour’ in Two of Newcastle’s Comedies,” in Fear and its Representations in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, eds., Anne Scott and Cynthia Kosso, Brepols, 2002 (Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 6), pp. 189 – 205.
“William Cavendish and Two Entertainments by Ben Jonson,” The Ben Jonson Journal, vol. 5 (1998, appeared 1999), pp. 63 – 80.
“The Language of Gender and a Textual Problem in Aphra Behn’s The Rover,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen [journal of the Modern Language Society of Finland], vol. 96, 1995, pp. 283 – 293.
“Aphra Behn and The Abraham’s Sacrifice Case,” Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 56, summer, 1993, pp. 319 – 326.
“Margaret Cavendish on Her Own Writing: Evidence from Revision and Handmade Correction.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 85, September, 1991, pp. 297 – 307.
“Carew’s Funerary Poetry and the Paradox of Sincerity,” Studies in English Literature, vol. 25, January, 1985, pp. 127 – 144. Projects
Original Plays
1. Margaret Cavendish, Virginia Woolf, and the Cypriot Goddess Natura
This play was performed at the CVAR Museum for the Othello’s Island Conference on 8 April of 2017 in Nicosia Cyprus. The dress rehearsal took place on 7 April. The actors were students from the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University.
Cast. Virginia Woolf and Female Barista – Jess Hakin. Constantijn Huygens and Male Barista – Tom Cable. Margaret Cavendish – Lucy Morehen. Beatrix de Cusance and Joan – Morgan Reilly. Elizabeth Topp, Mary Evelyn, and Melissa – Emilie Philpott. John Evelyn and Cafe Customer – Jessica Brown.
Production. Henry Bell, a lecturer in performance at Sheffield Hallam University, directed. Jim Fitzmaurice, NAU and University of Sheffield, and Michael Paraskos, Imperial College, London, were producers. Script by Jim Fitzmaurice. Video camera work by Yiangos Studios. Video editing by Kalia Christou, University of Cyprus.
Thanks. Financial support from the University of Sheffield Foundation, the Department of Performance at Sheffield Hallam University, and the Othello’s Island Conference. Special thanks to Rita Severis of the CVAR Museum.
Video of Dress Rehearsal.
https://digitalmedia.sheffield.ac.uk/media/t/1_jgeiivpz
2. Barack Obama: A Young Writer in Literary LA
Memberships
International Margaret Cavendish Society (Past President), Othello’s Island Conference (Academic Board), Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association (Past President), Renaissance Society of America (past Advisory Board member), Modern Language Association of America
