Recording her own life experiences as well as representing women in the 17th century, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu made a name for herself through her poetry. She consistently shifts from the personal to the public, reminiscing on life experiences one poem and extending a voice to the voiceless in the next. She takes on a sort of maternal, advisory stance, focusing often upon the theme of healing in her poetry.
In the account of her personal experiences, Montagu largely keeps her intimate thoughts and feelings out of the text. She prefers to demonstrate the significance of events factually. In "Farewell to Bath" Montagu recounts the various people whom she's met during her stay in Bath and offers an insider depth of knowledge about their affairs. Without actually stating her involvement with these people at all, Montagu elusively remains a near invisible figure in the text.
Extending her poetic voice to represent the women in her society who are not allowed to speak up on their own behalf, Montagu was a humanitarian of sorts and an advocate for women's rights in a completely banal, non-confrontational way. Poems like "Epistle from Mrs. Yonge to Her Husband," for example, is a letter written in behalf of Mrs. Yonge laying judgement against her inconsiderate and manipulative husband. In the same vane Montagu writes "A Receipt to Cure the Vapors" as a string of advice to a woman who has lost her husband to illness. Still, Montagu is not content merely offering advice. She also points toward the superficial and isolating way in which her society places expectations on women. An example is "Town Eclogues: Saturday; The Small-Pox" in which she depicts a young woman mourning for the loss of her youthful beauty to smallpox.
