Fairies
Cavendish developed a rather notorious connection to fairies. The structure of her poetry strongly indicates her full faith in the belief of their existence; a faith based on logical reasoning to a point. They are complicated creatures, to be sure, but ultimately come down to being her pre-eminent symbol of the nature and significance of having faith in ideas which cannot yet be proven.
Atoms
Atoms show up in even more poems than fairies and fairies dance throughout a bundle. In this volume along, are poems that engage the topic from the perspective of the size and weight of atoms, those that produce cold and fire, atom that create live and atoms that create death. She evens writes a poems about the atoms that create individual illnesses like consumption (tuberculosis). Essentially, atoms come to symbolize the DNA of existence as the building blocks of creation. Or, put another way, atoms are the hand of God.
Ants
“Of the Ant” is written upon observation of ants and analysis of their industry. It is observed that they are paragons of hard work, eschew competition for collaboration, and are find contentment in the simplicity of common needs being met. They reject the marketplace, share equally and breed without encroachment of monogamy. They are, in effect, the ideal symbol of the socialist utopia.
Spinning
From the spider spinning its web to clothing produced by the spinning wheel, the act of creation by spinning is feminized. In the epistle written to her brother-in-law Charles, Cavendish observes “spinning with the fingers is more proper to our sex than studying or writing poetry, which is the spinning with the brain.” And thus does spinning come to symbolize the act of creation resulting from human inspiration.
“Nature’s Cabinet”
The “Fancy” titled “Nature’s Cabinet” is entire a work that situates the titular furnishing as a symbol of the brain. Inside this cabinet can be found gloves which can be put on and off again—memories. Another drawer in the cabinet contains veils which are used to disguise those things we don’t wish to share with others. And so on.
