Abstract: This essay offers a fresh interpretation of Margaret Cavendish’s “Bear-men” from her utopian fantasy Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World (1666). While existing scholarship tends to read these bizarre extraterrestrial creatures in the light of contemporary bloodsports, the essay sets them against medieval and early modern humoral theory. By tracing the deep-seated cultural links between bears and melancholy, the paper demonstrates how Cavendish employs the figures to critique experimental philosophy, and to emphasize the psychological, social, and moral dangers of obsessive inquiry. Ultimately, the essay positions Cavendish’s work not merely as anti-scientific rhetoric but as a sophisticated engagement with prevailing philosophical and medical discourses, one situated within rather than against broader intellectual tradition.
Ben Parsons (Mon,) studied this question.