Hey guys! I decided to write my appetizer post about Margaret Cavendish’s play The Convent of Pleasure to begin a discussion on the carnivalesque in female spaces.
The Convent of Pleasure is a 17th-century Restoration play that follows Lady Happy, who is “handsome, clever, and rich” and determined not to marry any of the men who are after her considerable fortune (There is one man in particular named Monsieur Take-Pleasure, and his man-servant, Dick). Instead, she decides to create a “convent of pleasure,” “a place for freedom, not to vex the Senses but to please them.” This convent will exist only for women, as men are not permitted entrance (a very 17th-century concept, as there are more than two genders).
This is a play that follows the proto-feminist tradition of creating utopias for women that exclude men (think of Christine de Pizan’s “City of Ladies”). However, what separates this from other examples of feminine-utopias is the emphasis on indulgence. The women in this play are determined to live their best lives with the enforced absence of men, and in doing so they will exhibit no restraint when it comes to material and worldly pleasures.
I think the idea of a convent for pleasure is a very carnivalesque one not only because it is a place of indulgence and a “Plenty’s Horn,” but also because it parodies the very real Christian convent. In both situations, women are cloistered behind sturdy walls, kept safe from the world of men. However, that is where the similarities cease. For the church, the convent is a place of worship and virtue, whereas the convent of pleasure is a place of freedom. Although I think it is also important to acknowledge that, like a nun, Lady Happy takes a vow of virginity.
Excerpt from Act 1, Scene 2:
L. Happy. Men are the only troublers of Women; for they only cross and oppose their sweet delights, and peaceable life; they cause their pains, but not their pleasures. Wherefore those Women that are poor, and have not means to buy delights, and maintain pleasures, are only fit for Men; for having not means to please themselves, they must serve only to please others; but those Women, where Fortune, Nature, and the gods are joined to make them happy, were mad to live with Men, who make the Female sex their slaves; but I will not be so enslaved, but will live retired from their Company. Wherefore, in order thereto, I will take so many Noble Persons of my own Sex, as my Estate will plentifully maintain, such whose Births are greater then their Fortunes, and are resolv’d to live a single life, and vow Virginity: with these I mean to live incloister’d with all the delights and pleasures that are allowable and lawful; My Cloister shall not be a Cloister of restraint, but a place for freedom, not to vex the Senses but to please them.
For every Sense shall pleasure take,
And all our Lives shall merry make:
Our Minds in full delight shall joy,
Not vex’d with every idle Toy:
Each Season shall our Caterers be,
To search the Land, and Fish the Sea;
To gather Fruit and reap the Corn,
That’s brought to us in Plenty’s Horn;
With which we’l feast and please our fast,
But not luxurious make a wast.
Wee’l Cloth our selves with softest Silk,
And Linnen fine as white as milk.
Wee’l please our Sight with Pictures rare;
Our Nostrils with perfumed Air.
Our Ears with sweet melodious Sound,
Whose Substance can be no where found;
Our Taste with sweet delicious Meat,
And savory Sauces we will eat:
Variety each Sense shall feed,
And Change in them new Appetites breed.
Thus will in Pleasure’s Convent I
Live with delight, and with it die.
Link to full text in the Penn digital library: https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/newcastle/convent/convent.html
There is also a really good print edition here that has an excellent introduction by Sharon L. Jansen.
On Margaret Cavendish: Cavendish, Margaret
NOTE: You do not have to read either of these, I am just giving you the option to in case you find Cavendish and her work interesting.
Questions:
- In what ways does Lady Happy’s convent of pleasure display aspects of the carnivalesque?
- Margaret Cavendish in writing The Convent of Pleasure follows a tradition of feminine utopias that are made utopias due to being inaccessible by men. Is it possible for Lady Happy’s convent to be considered carnivalesque with this exclusion? Can the carnivalesque exist when it is only for some people?
- Many of the carnivalesque (and grotesque) aspects depicted by Rabelias in Pantagruel exist either directly or indirectly at the expense of women. Is there room for women in Bakhtin’s version of the Carnivalesque?
Extra Question:
- I think that it is important to acknowledge that Cavendish was a royalist and an aristocrat, and due to her being a panpsychist, she believed that “social harmony only arises when people know their proper places and perform their defining actions.” Is it possible to then view her works as carnivalesque when she has such distinctively non-carnivalesque ideals?
I also wanted to include some articles on Cavendish and her ideas on utopia, gender, and materialism, as well as one that I think offers really good insight on her eccentricities (in England, she was nicknamed by some “Mad Madge”). Again, you do not have to read these, I just found them interesting 🙂
- Notorious Celebrity: Margaret Cavendish and the Spectacle of Fame
- Chapter Five Revisiting Utopia in Margaret Cavendish’s Blazing World (this covers a piece of prose fiction by Cavendish that can be read as utopian, sci-fi, or both)
- Chapter 10 Living in a Material World: Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure
- Margaret Cavendish and the Female Satirist
I think the convent represents the Carnivalesque with its emphasis on indulgence. Some of the lines you highlighted are about being free, eating meat, and abundance. However, as you said, excluding men makes this more complicated. While on the surface excluding anyone may not be Carnivaleque, it seems that Lady Happy excluding them leads to a clear reversal of hierarchies. So in some ways this may add to the Carnivalesque nature, if not for the men clearly for the women.
As for the third question, I agree Rabelais’ carnival is often at the expense of women and Bakhtin seems to either ignore this or be fine with it. However, I think women can rather easily fit into this idea. We even see in other forms of Carnivalesque in culture (like Bruegel) women being a part of the festivities in a similar way to men.
Hi Elinor! This is a super interesting topic!
In regards to the second question that you posed, I do think it’s possible for the carnivalesque to exist with the exclusion of some groups. Throughout the semester, we’ve been grappling with coming up with definitions for the carnivalesque, and whenever I feel like I have a good idea, it falls apart because there’s so much nuance that goes into it! Bakhtin talks about Medieval and Renaissance carnivals being an event for everyone, but in reality it was probably only the non-elites that participated. Thus, carnival was sort of a space where the people enforcing those hierarchies were not present. In a way, I feel like carnival can’t really achieve its political aims with everyone being included.
Following this frame of thought, I feel like Cavendish’s work does fit into the carnivalesque, with the carnival aspect being centered around women. The Convent of Pleasure creates a space where women are able to escape and subvert gendered expectations without men being present.
I find myself particularly drawn to the carnivalesque inversion of a religious hierarchy into a parodical institution as an example of the aforementioned Bakhtinian notion. On the surface, this would seem like a definite indicator that we are dealing within the realm of the carnivalesque. The role of a female utopia in this realm is therefore also an interesting site of analysis – as it inherently includes the further reversal of hierarchies, this time around patriarchy and gender inequality (not that it resolves such social issues, but eliminates them according to the hegemonic gender binary).
There’s also explicit reference to the grotesque consumption of meat and the carnivalesque feast: “Our Taste with sweet delicious Meat, / And savory Sauces we will eat.” For me, this solidifies some of the carnivalesque aspects of Cavendish’s universe, and I definitely want to continue talking about the way that her position in the aristocracy complicates her critique!
Thank you all so much for your responses!
I wanted to return to my extra question which discussed Cavendish as a royalist and aristocrat. I think this can be related back to Rabelais, considering how he was also a person of privilege, and how a lot of the humor in his work, as well as literary references, are exclusive to educated men (who have most likely studied law). While I could not find statistics for literacy in France in the 16th century (I will admit that I did not spend as much time as I could have looking), in 1686-90, the rate of literacy was around 29 percent for men and 14 percent for women. This is more than 100 years after Rabelais, and as the statistics mentioned here are from the Enlightenment period, I think it is fair to assume that far fewer people were able to read when Gargantua and Pantagruel were first written. This makes me question the grotesque and carnivalesque in Rabelais because it indicates that these texts were not for everyone, but rather for an elite few. I was particularly struck by the note on page 21, where it says, “This is the first hint that Pantagruel … is also set in a comic version of [Thomas] More’s Utopia, still known only to those who could read Latin” (21). So I want to return to my initial question: is it possible to view these texts as carnivalesque when they are written in non-carnivalesque contexts? On one hand, we can look to Roland Barthes and call for the death of the author and ignore the context history provides (I recognize this is a bit of an oversimplification of Barthes), but on the other hand, that is an erasure of not only the author’s history but the history of the those who were denied the privileges that Rabelais and Cavendish received.
I’ve been thinking about this but I will say my thoughts are not finalized so I’m not really sure what I think yet, but here are some ideas.
In some ways, I agree that the Carnivalesque and Grotesque have to belong to “the people” which now would mean everyone. But now, if one writes a book, that is much closer to being accessible to “everyone” then it was then. As you said, most people when Rabelais was writing could not read, but then there is no way to write a book for everyone, regardless of the mindset of Rabelais. So if we decide that the authorial intent matters for deciding if something is Carnivalesque or Grotesque, then it is worth pointing out regardless of intent or how accessible his jokes are to the common people, most people still will not be able to read it no matter what Rabelais writes. Similar to now if someone were to make a Broadway play, it would be inaccessible to huge amounts of people no matter what the writers wanted, and there is nothing those writers can reasonably do to better the situation. So I am not sure, but I tend to feel that these can still be Carnivalesque and Grotesque regardless of the size of the audience.
That being said, as I was writing this I found myself changing my mind on the subject. So, I thought it best to leave this and post it, then reflect on what others say for the conversation tomorrow.
This is an important point about whether it’s possible to appreciate and interpret works apart from the author’s intent and honestly I’ve never really been able to come to a definite conclusion. I think it’s possible to enjoy a piece of media outside of the context it was written in. I feel like Rabelais satirizes and makes fun of everyone, and I found Matt’s comment on the main reading diary thread really helpful about how Rabelais’s stories would have been widely performed, so a much larger chunk of the population would have been familiar with them, rather than it just being limited to those who knew how to read.
I feel like Cavendish’s text can be read from a grotesque and carnivalesque perspective as well. Like I said before, I don’t really think that- at least in this case- carnival can achieve its political aims if it’s intended for everyone. So I do think it’s possible for a piece of media to be grotesque and carnivalesque and achieve its social and political goals while only being aimed at one portion of the population.
Hi all! Forgive my delay — I’m a little behind the curve, I guess. Thanks for redirecting us to this point, Elinor! I definitely want to echo what’s been said about the sort of (in Customs week-esque terms) “intent-versus-impact” conversation. I agree with Charlotte and Nico that in order to meet the ‘standards’ of the carnivalesque, there needs to be a sort of universal element that Cavendish’s work inherently doesn’t live up to given her aristocratic status and the inaccessibility of the written word at the time. For me, this thread and conversation actually has the secondary consequence of making me rethink the aims of the carnivalesque in an explicitly political context. In other words, the carnivalesque must, by definition, be a sort of political or revolutionary take on society — which is helpful in forcing me to think beyond “feast = carnival,” “oh, they have too much to drink, this is carnival” and consider the more radical implications of the subject.
I think you hit on one the interesting part of this to me. Namely, Cavendish must have a political aim of this that goes against the hierarchy and social norms. and because of this, I lean to this being Carnivalesque. But also as you said the Carnivalesque should have some sense of universality but it does not. I think as the semester has gone on I’ve started to think of the Carnivalesque not as a binary “yes it is Carnivalesque” or “no it is not Carnivalesque” but rather as a spectrum. Cavendish’s work is somewhere on that spectrum but not all the way at the end because of the lack of universality. I do, however, feel it is still rather Carnivalesque.
I definitely agree with this. I feel like I used to think of the carnivalesque as more of a black and white concept, when it really is a spectrum. There are carnivalesque aspects to things that aren’t very carnivalesque, and even in some of the carnivalesque texts that we’ve read (like Trimalchio’s feast in Satyrica) there are problems that arise (such as issues of class) that keep it from being truly carnivalesque.
I am really happy with how this presentation went! I have been interested in the literary tradition of feminine utopias for a long time, and I am glad I got to integrate my interest into this class.
This conversation, in particular, made me think a lot about spaces, and how, while a space might be carnivalesque for some, it is not necessarily carnivalesque for others. This then brings up the question: is a space truly carnivalesque if it is not carnivalesque for everyone? In one sense, I think Bakhtin would say that a place is only carnivalesque if everyone participates, as a carnivalesque environment is meant to create a feeling of a united humanity. But at the same time, I think he recognizes how this is kind of impossible. Bakhtin likes to imagine if everyone embraces inherently their grotesque natures then the carnival will begin, but I do not think this is accurate, and the fact that Bakhtin refuses to prioritize women at all in Rabelais and His World speaks to that. You guys mentioned towards the end of the discussion how the level of carnivalesque can be placed on a spectrum. I think this is a really good way of visualizing this concept and just makes more room for the carnivalesque to exist in.
I decided to make this presentation about The Convent of Pleasure not only because I think it is a really interesting and underrated text, but also because I wanted to see what would happen if we applied Bakhtin’s ideas to a primary text written by a woman. When I was looking through the index of Rabelais and His World for my intervention post, the only woman I found was Marie de France, who, while she is incredible and iconic, (to the point where some male scholars say that she must have actually been a man because no medieval woman could write as well as she did) only got a brief mention from Bakhtin as he listed texts that covered “Saint Patrick’s hole.” I think that women writers have a lot to contribute to grotesque and carnivalesque theory, and this was my attempt to start that conversation.
Another part of this presentation and the conversation that followed that I found very rewarding was the discussion of how much the background and ideals of an author should be considered when reading their texts through a Bakhtinian lens. Bakhtin places so much emphasis on how the grotesque and carnivalesque are embodied by the common people or the peasants, and how these concepts work to eliminate hierarchy. But then we have writers like Cavendish and Rabelais who convey messages of the carnivalesque and grotesque, all while representing the educated elite. Obviously, I do not have an answer as to how we are supposed to read Rabelais (because there is no “proper” way to read something), but I think how much we pay attention to the author and historical context is an important thing to consider. Charlotte mentioned in the intervention discussion that a lot of Rabelais’ stories would have been performed, and therefore accessible to people who could not read, The Convent of Pleasure, on the other hand, was never meant to be performed, as it was a closet drama. I do not mention this to condemn Cavendish for not making her works more accessible, it was a lot harder for women to have their works performed, but how past readers/observers interacted with a text is significant when it comes to understanding a text.