Hayal Gücünün Kıyısında Dans Eden Atomlar: Margaret Cavendish’in “Atom Şiirleri”nde Materyalizm Kavramı

Year 2022, Issue: 30, 1237 - 1247, 21.10.2022

Arzu Çevirgen

https://doi.org/10.29000/rumelide.1193098

Abstract

On yedinci yüzyılın en üretken ve sıra dışı kadın figürlerinden biri olan Newcastle Düşesi Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) erkek egemen edebiyat dünyasında bir hayli eser yazmayı ve yayınlamayı başarır. Karşılaştığı tüm engellere rağmen, kendisinin olağanüstü hayal gücü, kadın yazarlar için uygun görülmeyen bilim alanına adım atması konusunda onu harekete geçirir. Özellikle, on yedinci yüzyıl filozofları ve bilim adamları tarafından yeniden canlandırılan atomizme ve materyalizme olan ilgiden hareketle, kendi evren anlayışını birbirinden ayrılmaz iki kavram olan “madde” ve “hareket” üzerinden sunar. Atomizmin, madde ve hareket gibi, sadece birkaç terminolojisini eserlerinde sıklıkla kullanırken bilimsel teori yerine hayal gücünü, yani doğuştan gelen zekâsını, kullanır çünkü onun için eserlerini yazmada strateji olarak kullandığı hayal gücü zihnindeki fiziksel hareketlere bağlıdır ve bu yüzden maddeseldir. Atomlar canlılığı bünyesinde barındırdığından, Cavendish “dirimselci materyalizmini” anlatmak için “Atom Şiirleri”ni yazarken tema olarak atomları seçer ve hatta onları kendi benliğinin bir metaforu olarak sunarak erkeklerin egemen olduğu bilimsel ve edebi camiada var olduğunu ileri sürer. Bu bağlamda bu makalenin amacı, Margaret Cavendish’in Poems, and Fancies (Şiirler ve Hayal Güçleri) (1653) adlı şiir kitabında yer alan “Atom Şiirleri”ni atomizmi kendi algıladığı hâliyle nasıl kullandığını göz önünde bulundurarak incelemektir ve nasıl hayalci bir üslupla yeni bir madde teorisi ortaya atarak aslında bin dokuz yüz doksanların ikinci yarısında adı konacak olan yeni materyalizm adlı teoriye ışık tuttuğunu göstermektir.

Keywords

Margaret Cavendish, Hayal Gücü, Atomizm, Materyalizm “Atom Şiirleri”

Dancing Atoms on the Brink of Fancy: The Concept of Materialism in Margaret Cavendish’s “Atomic Poems”

Abstract

As one of the most prolific and eccentric female figures of the seventeenth century, Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673), managed to write and publish a great number of literary works in the male-dominated literary world of the time. Despite all the obstacles, her outrageous imagination stimulates her to step into the field of science which was not seen as suitable for women writers. Especially, drawing on the interest in atomism and materialism that were revived by the philosophers and scientists of the seventeenth century, Cavendish presents her own understanding of the universe based on two inseparable terms, “matter” and “motion.” While employing some of the terminology of atomism, matter and motion in particular, she uses her fancy, natural wit, rather than scientific theory because for her, fancy, which is used as a strategy by Cavendish in writing her works, is related to the physical movements in her mind and is, thus, “material.” As atoms embody vitalism, Cavendish chooses them as a theme in her “Atomic Poems” to show her “vitalist materialism” and by presenting them as a metaphor of her female self, she manifests herself in the male-dominated scientific and literary world. The aim of this paper is, thus, to examine Margaret Cavendish’s “Atomic Poems” in Poems, and Fancies (1653), in relation to how she employs atomism, in the way she perceives, and introduces a new theory of matter, which will set light to new materialism coined in the second half of the 1990s, with a fanciful manner.

Keywords

Margaret Cavendish, Fancy, Atomism, Materialism, “Atomic Poems”

References

• Arabatzis, T. (2006). Representing Electrons: A Biographical Approach to Theoretical Entities. Chicago: Chicago Üniversitesi Yayınları.
• Bal, M. (2004). “Major Poetic Concepts in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria and Their Reflections in His Poems ‘the Eolian Harp,’ ‘Kubla Khan,’ the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and ‘Dejection: An Ode.’” Yükseklisans tezi, Hacettepe Üniversitesi.
• Battigelli, A. (1998). Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind. Kentucky: Kentucky Üniversitesi Yayınları.
• Bowerbank, S. (1984). “The Spider’s Delight: Margaret Cavendish and the ‘Female’ Imagination.” English Literary Renaissance, 14(3), 392-408. Erişim adresi: http://www.jstor.org./
• Cavendish, M. (1996). “The Atomic Poems of Margaret (Lucas) Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, from Her Poems, and Fancies, 1653.” L. T. Partington (Ed.). Emory Women Writers Resource Project at the Lewis H. Beck Center. Emory Üniversitesi.
• Cavendish, M. (2004). The Blazing World and Other Writings. Londra: Penguin.
• Cavendish, M. (1886). The Life of William Cavendish: Duke of Newcastle, to which is added the True Relation of My Birth, Breeding, and Life. C. H. Firth (Ed.). Londra: John C. Nimmo.
• Cavendish, M. (2000). Poems, and Fancies, 1653. H. L. Smith, B. A. Carroll (Ed.), Women’s Political & Social Thought: An Anthology (s. 73) içinde. ABD: Indiana Üniversitesi Yayınları.
• Cavendish, M. (1656). A True Relation of my Birth, Breeding, and Life. Natures Pictures, Drawn by Fancies Pencil to the Life. Londra, İngiltere: J. Martin and J. Allestrye.
• Cavendish, M. (2001). Observations Upon Experimental Philosophy. E. O’Neil (Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge Üniversitesi Yayınları.
• Cavendish, M. (1653). Philosophicall Fancies. Londra: Tho. Roycroft.
• Cavendish, M. (1972). Poems, and Fancies. Birleşik Krallık: Scolar.
• Cavendish, M. (1997). Sociable Letters. J. Fitzmaurice (Ed.). New York: Garland.
• Challoner, J. (2018). The Atom: The Building Block of Everything. Londra: Ivy.
• Coleridge, S. T. (2013). “Biographia Literaria.” S. Greenblatt (Ed.), The Norton Anthology of English Literature (s. 491-96) içinde. New York: W. W. Norton.
• Duncan, S. (2012). “Debating Materialism: Cavendish, Hobbes, and More.” History of Philosophy Quarterly, 29(4), 391-409. Erişim adresi: http://www.jstor.org./
• Fitzmaurice, J. (1990). “Fancy and the Family: Self-Characterizations of Margaret Cavendish.” Huntington Library Quarterly, 53(3), 198-209. Erişim adresi: http://www.jstor.org./
• Gregersen, E. (Ed.). (2011). Physics Explained: The Britannica Guide to Particle Physics. New York: Britannica.
• Hall, M. B. (1975). “The Royal Society’s Role in the Diffusion of Information in the Seventeenth Century.” Royal Society, 29(2), 173-92. Erişim adresi: http://www.jstor.org./
• Hequembourg, S. (2014). “The Poetics of Materialism in Cavendish and Milton.” The English Renaissance, 54(1), 173-92. Erişim adresi: http://www.jstor.org./
• Henry, J. (2012). Religion, Magic, and the Origins of Science in Early Modern England. New York: Routledge.
• Hobby, E. (1998). “Usurping Authority over the Man: Women’s Writing 1630-89.” M. Shaw (Ed.), An Introduction to Women’s Writing From Middle Ages to the Present Day, (s. 65-93) içinde. Londra: Prentice Hall.
• Kargon, R. H. (1966). Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton. Oxford: Clarendon.
• Lawrence, K. R. (1988). Penelope Voyages: Women and Travel in the British Literary Tradition. Londra: Cornell Üniversitesi Yayınları.
• McLean, A. (2011). What is Atomic Theory? Canada: Crabtree.
• Melsen, A. G. (2004). From Atomos to Atom: The History of the Concept Atom. New York: Dover.
• Merchant, C. (1989). The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Harper Collins.
• Oppermann, S. (2016a). From material to posthuman ecocriticism: Hybridity, stories, nature. H. Zapf (Ed.), Handbook of ecocriticism and cultural ecology içinde (s.273-294). Berlin: De Gruyter.
• Rees, E. L. E. (2003). Margaret Cavendish: Gender, Genre, Exile. New York, ABD: Manchester Üniversitesi Yayınları.
• Sadun, H. (2005). “Where Science Meets With Fancy: The Atomic Poems of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle.” Edebiyat fakültesi Dergisi, 22(2), 187-203.
• Sarasohn, L. T. (2010). The Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish: Reason and Fancy during the Scientific Revolution. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Üniversitesi Yayınları.
• Sarasohn, L. T. (1984). “A Science Turned Upside Down: Feminism and the Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish.” HLQ, 47(4), 289-307. Erişim adresi: http://www.jstor.org./
• Shapin, S. (1988). “The House of Experiment in Seventeenth-Century England.” Isis, 79(3), 373-404. Erişim adresi: http://www.jstor.org./
• Solomon, J. F. (1989). “Annotating the Annotations: A Philosophical Reading of the Primary and Secondary Imagination.” F. Burwick (Ed.), Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria: Text and Meaning (s. 138-49) içinde. Colombus: Ohio Üniversitesi Yayınları.
• Stevenson, J. (1996). “The Mechanist-Vitalist Soul of Margaret Cavendish.” SEL, 36(3), 527-43. Erişim adresi: http://www.jstor.org./
• Taylor, I. (2015). Famous Discoveries and their discoverers: Fascinating facts from the worlds of science, technology and human achievement. Birleşik Krallık: Memoirs.
• Wall, W. (1993). The Imprint of Gender: Authorship and Publication in the English Renaissance. Londra: Cornell Üniversitesi Yayınları.
• Wallraven, M. (2007). A Writing Halfway Between Theory and Fiction: Mediating Feminism from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century. Almanya: Königshausen ve Neumann.
• Walters, L. (2014). Margaret Cavendish: Gender, Science and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge Üniversitesi Yayınları.
• Whitaker, K. (2002). Mad Madge: The Extraordinary Life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, the First Woman to Live by Her Pen. New York, ABD: Basic.