The "Chymical Theatre"(1): Alchemical Imagery in Margaret Cavendish's The Convent of Pleasure

This paper examines alchemical imagery and discourses in The Convent of Pleasure (1668) by Margaret Cavendish. In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, there was a proliferation of alchemical texts, including English translations of writing by European alchemists. Inspired by the ideas and the practice of alchemy, many contemporary authors, such as Cavendish, John Donne, Ben Jonson, and William Shakespeare, drew extensively from alchemy in their works. Cavendish's incorporation of alchemical principles, emblems, and lexicons into her philosophical treatises and literary writing is specifically significant. My reading of alchemy in The Convent addresses two main issues: the first is the symbolic meaning of Lady Happy's convent, and its connection with the debate over nature and art; the second are the images of the "chemical wedding" and "virgin milk" in the sea masque. In this way, this paper contributes to the growing interest in early modern alchemy by articulating the performative use of alchemical imagery in Cavendish's play.