An Ecocritical Exploration of The Unique Nature of Oceans in The Blazing World

Early modern perceptions of oceanic space diverged from standard perceptions of nature on land (or land-nature) because oceans presented a different type of wilderness. Because oceans defied early modern definitions of nature, they refused to support the developing mechanistic approach in the way that land-nature did. I examine Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World to illustrate how the liminal position of oceans within the humankind-nature paradigm necessitated a hybrid mechanistic-organic relationship and representation. This exploration demonstrates how oceans, as an extraterrestrial space distanced from traditional, terrestrial nature, constituted a different kind of natural phenomenon and contributed to a global mentality. Experimenting with humankind's perceptions of, and approaches to, nature suggests that the organic/mechanistic dichotomy is an overly-simplified paradigm, and that the human/nature partition is equally simplistic due to differing "natures" of terrestrial verses oceanic space. Oceans do not fit neatly under the paradigm of "nature," they deviate through resistance and idiosyncrasy. Charting oceans proves an effective step in diversifying definitions, representations, and perceptions of nature.