"No Crime to Be Bashful": Social Anxiety in the Drama of Margaret Cavendish

Abstract

Abstract:This essay will discuss the role of social anxiety in the work of Margaret Cavendish, with a particular emphasis on blushing, speechlessness, and what we would now call introversion. The bashfulness that she presents in her work as a "crimeless defect," I will argue, is both a form of transgressive modesty and a reaction against environmental sensitivity. In plays such as Lady Contemplation, The Presence, and Love's Adventures, Cavendish is interested in staging various failures of communication.