ABSTRACT In the commemorative A Collection of Letters and Poems (1678), friends of Margaret Cavendish compare her thoughts to miracles, her texts to shrines, and her person to a nun. This essay argues that testimonials such as these represent the responses of willing participants in Cavendish’s fantasy about her own saintly status. Upholding the outward form of religion but not the substance, she seeks to establish her own cult of personality, whose members contribute new headspaces to serve as shrines for her iconographic, meme-like images. Rather than heaven, Cavendish seeks to be glorified in our heads in the here and now, trading transcendence for immanence as she attempts to “Live … in all Ages, and in every Brain” (Sociable Letters, 178). Her texts not only flirt with idolatry; they actively promote it by encouraging us to worship our mental images of her as solitary saint.

中文翻译：

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玛格丽特·卡文迪许的经典化：关于崇拜及其偶像的创造

摘要在玛格丽特·卡文迪什（Margaret Cavendish）的纪念版《书信集》（1678）中，她将自己的思想与奇迹，文本与神殿进行了比较，并将她的人与修女进行了比较。本文认为，这样的推荐代表了卡文迪许幻想自己对自己的圣贤身份的积极参与者的反应。她坚持宗教的外在形式，而不是宗教的实质，她寻求建立自己的个性崇拜，其成员贡献出新的顶空，作为她的象形文字，象形文字图像的圣地。卡文迪什试图从天而降，以超越内在的内在追求光荣，而不是天堂，因为她试图“在各个年龄段和每个大脑中生活”（《社会快报》，第178页）。她的文字不仅带有偶像崇拜的调情。