What are we to make of Cavendish’s stance on the condition of nature between the sexes? In the beginning, Bell in Campo makes the case for women’s larger role in the world order by illustrating that an oppositional view between men and women limit the female role in the world. Lady Victoria makes the comparison explicit, “and the reason of these erroneous opinions of the Masculine Sex to the Effeminate, is, that our Bodyes seem weak, being delicate and beautifull, and our minds seem fearfull, being compassionate and gentle natured, but if we were both weak and fearfull, as they imagine us to be, yet custome which is a second Nature will encourage the one and strengthen the other….” (I.9) Yet, in the play’s conclusion, Lady V’s triumphant success is marked by a strangely universal proclamation that returns women to a domestic setting, albeit one that gives them ruling status. “First, That all women shall he after in this Kingdome be Mistriss in their own Houses and Families. (V.20) Cavendish seems to suggest that nature also serves the very important purpose of securing women’s commanding presence at home. Perhaps the following sums up this paradox, “for nature allows them a part as well as you, for there is nothing in the World we can absolutely possess to ourselves.” (III.25)
What we find virtuous in Bell in Camp—the co-joining of women and men in positions of power and esteem—we query in Convent of Pleasure. In the later, through the construct of a completely female engagement, Canvendish seems to endorse the position that women reside in isolation from men and enjoy their absence with a new kind of pleasure. Indeed, the joys of homoerotic beauty, passion and love paint a sublime, natural world until the arrival of a royal visitor, “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.”(I.II) It is interesting that the dubiously depicted par amour contains a feminine exterior along with a forceful composure, “These my Imbraces of Female Kind, May be as fervent as a Masculine Mind.” (IV.I) Until, this foreign Prince(ss) invades the female fortress, Cavendish seems to support the idea of lesbian love, but perhaps only to a point. When Lady Happy asks why shouldn’t she have the Princess as a lover, she answers herself with a nod to traditional partnership roles, “ No no, Nature is Nature, and still we be/the same she was from all Eternity.” (IV.I) Was this a rhetorical devise used to assume a collective societal objection to such modes of behavior? Continuing the conversation, L. Happy goes on to reject the classical (established) order in favor of a love which overcomes all obstacles, “No, Servant! Your Presence is more acceptable to me that the Presence of our Goddess Nature, for which she, I fear will punish me for loving you more then I aught to love you.” (IV.I) What are we to think of this in light of the fact the object of her affection is really a man rather than a woman?
Location, Location, Location
(To continue the discussion of how location matters in these plays,) There appears to be different geographical gendered places in Bell in Camp. Whereas the scenes comparing Madams Jantil’s and Passionate’s reactions to their husbands deaths take place in the city, the war episodes are either in the Garrison Town or Open Fields. In the beginning of the play, Lady Victoria suggests that the city will tempt her so as to be vulnerable to amorous and persistent suitors. During the battle, the Garrison Town is marked as a female (weak) place while the plains seem to make the fighters more masculine (capable), “that Towns breed or beget a tenderness of Bodies, and laziness of limbs, luxurious Appetites, and soften the natural dispositions, which renderness, luxury, effeminacy, and laziness, corrupts and spoils martial discipline, whereas open Fields, and casting up trenches makes Souldiers more hardy, laborious and careful, as being more watchfull.” (II.11) Back in the city, Cavendish wants us to see how Jantil and Passionate loose themselves in a kind of vulgar excess, the first by constructing an elaborate cemetery where Jantil buries herself and the later by a vain offering from a vampiric suitor who has a slight resemblance to her deceased husband. Is the city a kind of devise that helps enable self-destructive behavior in women?
It is interesting that place assumes another shift in Convent of Pleasure. I wonder how the space within the space (play within the play) further locates the idea of male and female into still another kind of reality. The first time we see the Prince(ss) dressed as a man is immediately prior to the Shepherd’s scene. It is in this pastoral that the first kiss takes pace. The stage direction reads, “This Scene is changed into a Green, or Plain, where Sheep are feeding, and May-Pole in the middle.” (IV.1) Clearly, this sexually charged image previews the undressing of the Prince and prepares the reader for the union of man and wife. But, how does this particular pastoral further Canvendish’s view of women?
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