The Convent of Pleasure

The Convent of Pleasure is an Early Modern comedy written by Margaret Cavendish.^[1] The play is about a group of unmarried women, initiated by Lady Happy, who choose to avoid the pains or displeasures that exist in a male-dominated world. In turn, they create their own community or "cloister" as it is often mentioned. The main characters of this play are Lady Happy, the Monsieurs who wish to remove her from the convent, and the Princess, who joins Lady Happy's convent and woos her.

The play was published in London under Cavendish's own name, a rare choice for a woman writer in 1668. As the play is a closet drama, Cavendish did not attempt to have it staged.^[2] Two passages in the play are credited to her husband, as denoted by the insertion of "Written by my Lord Duke" above these scenes.^[3]

Characters[]

• Lady Happy: a wealthy unmarried woman who inherits her father's estate and decides to seclude herself in it with only women.
• Madam Mediator: a widow and a friend of Lady Happy who does not join the convent of pleasure, but is allowed to visit.
• The Princess: a character who asks to join the convent, and forms a romantic relationship with Lady Happy. This character is listed as "The Princess" in the first edition list of characters,^[4] and for most of the play, stage directions refer to this character as "Princess." Near the end of the play, an ambassador arrives who declares that the Princess is a prince who has gone missing from his kingdom; from this point, the stage directions refer to this character as the "Prince" rather than the "Princess."^[5]
• Monsieur Take-Pleasure: the informal leader of a group of men who wish to prevent the women from living in the convent. He is accompanied by Dick his Man, and by Monsieur Facil, Monsieur Adviser, and Monsieur Courtly.
• Lady Amorous and Lady Vertue: two married women who live outside the convent, friends of Madam Mediator.

Several of the secondary characters also appear in Cavendish's play : namely, Lady Amourous, Lady Virtue, Monsieur Take-Pleasure, Monsieur Adviser, and Monsieur Facil.^[6]

Summary[]

Act I:

Scene 1: Three Gentlemen discuss the death of Lord Fortunate, Lady Happy's father. In doing so, they express their intent to woo Lady Happy seeing that she is a newly rich and (still) unmarried woman. Most notably, Gentleman 2 claims: "Yes, she is extream handsome, young, rich, and virtuous" to which Gentlemen 1 responds that those qualities are bold for one woman to have all at once (98).

Scene II: Lady Happy and Madam Mediator engage in a lengthy conversation about Lady Happy's intent to create a convent of pleasure for women only. Lady Happy says: "...I intend to incloister my self from the World, to enjoy pleasure, and not to bury my self from it; but to incloister my self from the incumbred cares and vexations, troubles and perturbance of the World...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" (100-101).^[7]  In this expression, Lady Happy begins to comment on the source of women's displeasure outside of the convent and the pleasures the convent may bring.

Act II:

Scene I: The Monsieurs alongside Dick partake in lamenting Lady Happy's decision to create a convent of pleasure as it indicates that they will not be able to take her hand in marriage. Notable in this scene are the perceptions of marriage and the disagreement about women's position in said marriage (from the male perspective). For instance, it is said that women are never happy in marriages, women are happy when they become married, and even that women are unhappy whether unmarried or married. By the end of the scene, the men attempt to petition the state for Lady Happy's convent to no more or cease to exist.

Scene II: Madam Mediator welcomes this scene with her skepticism of the convent, questioning if the ladies regret their decision. Lady Happy then gives a lengthy response in which she details the fashions of the convent (the physical space) according to the senses of each season. The ladies affirm: "None in this World can be happier" (106).^[7]  

Scene III: Lady Amorous and Lady Vertue open the scene with a discussion of their states of happiness in their marriages; conflicting states indeed. Then, Madam Mediator enters to ask if they have heard of a Princess wishing to be part of the convent. It is said in this scene that the Princess is: "...a Princely brave Woman truly, of a Masculine Presence" (107).^[7]

Scene IV: The Monsieurs convene again, but this time to concoct a plan to disguise themselves as women to gain entrance into the convent. It is noted that the men will reveal themselves due to their voices, behavior, and their inability to accomplish some gendered tasks such as milking cows.

Act III:

Scene I: The Princess enters the convent with greetings from Lady Happy. Their first encounter seems to be one that revolves around the interpretation of Friendship: "I desire you would be my Mistress, and I your Servant; and upon this agreement of Friendship I desire you will grant me one Request ["...the part of your loving Servant"]" (111).^[7] The Princess notes that many of the women in the convent have paired off together romantically, and asks to "act Lovers-parts" in male attire with Lady Happy, who gladly agrees. The beginning of a series of plays (within the play) are initiated at the end of the scene.

Scene II: Two women exchange experiences of their marriages. The first woman explains how her husband is a drunk and beats her when he returns home. The second woman explains that her husband is the same and also spends or gambles all of their money away.

Scene III: Although an extremely short scene, it notes the pains, the physical and mental strains, of pregnancy.

Scene IV: Two women discuss how their husbands have gambled away their estate, lost their ownership portions, and spent money on whores. Their final comment is: "If all Married Women were as unhappy as I, Marriage were a curse" (113).^[7]

Scene V: A woman loses her child, although it is unclear if the child dies after birth or later in life.

Scene VI: A woman enters a tavern in search of her husband to discover that he has left with a "She-Supporter." A gentleman offers to buy her a glass of wine to soothe her.

Scene VII: A woman endures childbirth and believes that her back will break. The midwife is called but the woman calls out for Juno, a Roman goddess.

Scene VIII: Two elderly women discuss the pains of motherhood. They comment on how they bring children into this world, just for them to enact all sorts of evil. The first elderly woman's son will be hung for killing another man. The second elderly woman has two daughters, one in which had a child out of wedlock and the other ran away with a man. Their end thoughts: "Who would desire Children, since they come to such misfortunes" (115)?^[7]

Scene IX: Two women are in labor. The first woman is in active labor while the second woman has a stillborn child. The midwife is directed to not tell the woman of the stillborn child because the news would send her to her own death and despair.

Scene X: An exchange occurs between a gentleman and a lady that suggests that the gentleman wants to leave his wife for the lady. The lady is taken aback and in doing so the gentleman says that he will take her with or without her consent. The scene enters with Lady Happy and the Princess conversing about their thoughts on the play.

Act IV:

Scene I: Lady Happy wanders sadly dressed as a shepherdess, feeling that her love for the Princess is too much. The Princess arrives dressed as a Shepherd and they embrace and kiss. There is a pastoral scene: another woman dressed as shepherd woos Lady Happy but is rejected; the Princess woos Lady Happy and is accepted; there is a dance with a prize awarded to the best dancers, Lady Happy and the Princess. The pastoral scene closes with verses indicated to be written by Margaret Cavendish's husband. The Princess soliloquizes, resolving to remain with Lady Happy rather than return to the masculine outside world. An extended water-nymph scene begins: the Princess, dressed as Neptune, and Lady Happy, dressed as a sea goddess, sit surrounded by sea-nymphs and describe their luxurious underwater kingdom. A sea nymph sings a song.

Act V:

Scene I: Madam Mediator reveals news that the ladies of the convent have been deceived by a man in women's clothing. The Princess stands her ground that she is not a man disguised. However, an ambassador appears and expresses that the Prince's subjects are distraught by his absence. In doing so, the ambassador reveals that the Princess is a Prince. The Prince(ss) announces: "since I am discover'd, go from me to the Councellors of this State, and inform them of my being here, as also the reason, and that I ask their leave I may marry this Lady; otherwise, tell them I will have her by force of Arms."

Scene II: Madam Mediator reports to the Monsieurs the news of deception. The Monsieurs are curious that the ladies were never able to uncover the truth to which Madam Mediator expresses a moment of indication that she knew: "...only once I saw him kiss the Lady Happy; and you know Womens Kisses are unnatural, and me-thought they kissed with more alacrity then Women use, a kind of Titillation, and more Vigorous" (130).^[7] The Monsieurs acknowledge their missed opportunity to woo Lady Happy.

Scene III: The Prince and Lady Happy are married. Mimick and the Prince discuss what ought to be done with the convent to which the Prince says: "I’le divide it for Virgins and Widows" (132).^[7]

Major themes[]

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Resistance to Marriage[]

Erin Lang Bonin interprets The Convent of Pleasure as an attempted utopia, one of several plays in which Cavendish "reconfigures traditional distinctions between private and public by creating utopian heroines who take women's sequestration to extremes, completely insulating themselves from men's public spheres."^[8] In Bonin's interpretation, Lady Happy begins the play firmly positioned within the heterosexual, reproductive economy as an heiress who is a valuable commodity in the multiple senses of the term. When she withdraws to the convent, Lady Happy angers the patriarchy by taking her body and her possessions out of circulation. Because the convent rejects marriage, Bonin argues, it threatens larger political contexts. Bonin sees this threat voiced by Monsieur Facil, who implies a masculinist conflation of family and state when he demands that Lady Happy be forced out of her convent "for the good of the Commonwealth" (p. 11). Bonin compares The Convent of Pleasure to Cavendish's The Female Academy, another female separatist utopia, to argue that The Convent of Pleasure reinforces its separatist stance through the way the characters talk. Lady Happy's rhetoric celebrates the convent's paradoxical walled freedom, refashioning marriage into the true cloister: "Marriage to those that are virtuous is a greater restraint than a Monastery," she insists (p. 3). To further emphasize the restrictions of marriage, the play includes a play-within-a-play that depicts the physical and emotional pains of being a wife, redirecting female desires toward other spheres (pp. 24–30).

Kelsey Brooke Smith of Brigham Young University wrote her dissertation on chastity as a political power in The Convent of Pleasure. Her analysis of Lady Happy portrayed her as a "virtuous, wealthy, and beautiful young virgin" who is understandably sought after during this time.^[9] Lady Happy does not want to marry because it would only bring her unhappiness. She says in the play that married life would "have more crosses and sorrows than pleasure, freedom, or happiness"^[10][11] Smith notes that despite her original position, Lady Happy consents to marrying the Prince. She believes this is a fluctuation on Cavendish's part between acknowledging marriage as inevitable and believing certain marriages are actually desirable. She notes that Cavendish appeared to have an agreeable marriage to her husband but also notes that he was a large source of her reputation and without her marriage to him she could not have supported her lifestyle.^[9][12]

Utopia[]

The utopian nature of life within the convent, Bonin argues, are highlighted by the way that life in the convent is presented as a fundamentally different, and better, society. Cavendish suggests the convent's pleasures are inaccessible, and even inconceivable to those positioned within the patriarchy. When Monsieur Courtly asks, "But is there no place where we may peak into the Convent?" Monsieur Adviser replies, "No, there are no Grates, but Brick and Stone-walls" (p. 19). Grates are absent by Lady Happy's decree, making her institution more insulated than the Female Academy, where perforated walls enable limited exchange. The convent is sealed not only from men, but from wives as well. As married women, Lady Amorous and Lady Vertue can only wonder about the delights within the convent. Their only glimpse of the convent comes through Madame Mediator, a widow who occupies a position inside and outside both the patriarchy and the convent. Madame Mediator has a limited capacity to describe the convent's rituals and pleasures to those firmly ensconced within the patriarchal economy: men, wives, and sometimes even the play's readers. But Madame Mediator's discourse provides only partial access to the utopian cloister. When Lady Vertue exclaims, "Well might I wish I might see and know, what Pleasures they enjoy," Madame Mediator responds, "If you were there, you could not know all their Pleasure in a short time, for their Varieties will require a long time to know their several Changes" (p. 17). Here, the widow's language is enticingly vague, suggesting the convent's "Varieties" of pleasure are unimaginable to those doomed to live outside its walls.

Gender[]

Line Cottegnies has written on Cavendish from the perspective of Shakespeare in an article called "Gender and Cross-dressing in the Seventeenth Century: Margaret Cavendish Reads Shakespeare." Cottegnies writes, "In The Convent of Pleasure, Cavendish uses episodes and devices borrowed from several of Shakespeare’s comedies to reflect on transvestism and its implications."^[13] In particular, Cottegnies believes Cavendish draws on the techniques of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure (1604), in which a Duke disguises himself as a friar and woos a novice, Isabella. Cottegnies found the endings of the two plays especially similar in the silences of both Lady Happy and Isabella when the Prince and the Duke reveal themselves in their respective plays. However, she found a difference in meaning between the two silences. Lady Happy is silent because she has finally yielded to passion instead of reason. Isabella is silent because she yields to the power of the Duke.^[13]

Homosexuality & Lesbianism[]

Homosexuality or lesbianism is a theme in The Convent of Pleasure that is viewed in opposition to masculinity and marriage. Scholar Valerie Traub writes that: "Margaret Cavendish [...] had at her imaginative disposal some strong precedents for the figuring of female-female desire. In the Convent of Pleasure, Cavendish explicitly explores the attractions of homoeroticism among women, only to reaffirm the necessity of marital alliance as the price of a harmonious dramatic conclusion" (177).^[14] Katherine R. Kellett also focused on this theme and corresponding conflict in her work: "...The Convent of Pleasure addresses this failure for female-female desire to signify by representing lesbianism as a force that threatens patriarchal authority. For Traub, the irony of the play is that it is only when female-female desire threatens to ‘usurp male sexual prerogatives’ that it becomes visible at all" (422).^[2] Kellett points to examples of this in the text, including the relationship between Lady Happy and the Princess: "Their rejection of the heterosexual economy is successful in the first part of the play, but the entrance of the Princess, who cross-dresses as a man and incites same-sex desire in Lady Happy, complicates their project" (421).^[2]

See also[]

• Beguines and Beghards
• Margaret Cavendish

References[]

External links[]

• The Convent of Pleasure by Margaret Cavendish. U Penn Digital Library.
• Plays, Never Before Printed by Margaret Cavendish, which contains The Convent of Pleasure on p. 337. Digitized Books, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.