Men; Can't Live With Them and Can't Live Without Them

The statement in this blog title sums up my feelings about Lady Mary Chudleigh. She wrote two poems, "The Wish" and "To The Ladies", that proved to be a huge contrast in her thoughts and beliefs. In "The Wish", Chudleigh is very clearly asking for a man, of all the good characteristics and virtues in the world, to love and to love her. She wishes for a friend that she can love so dearly and he will be complimentary to her in exactly the right way. Then, in "To The Ladies" she names off all the things wrong with marriage and divorce in this age. Women were not allowed to divorce from man, it had to be the other way around, so it's clear there are some issues, but Chudleigh flipped scripts from one poem to the next. In one she is basically praying for someone to send her a man to love and eventually marry, because that's what you had to do in the time, but in the next she speaks to marriage being simply a trap for women to fall into. Ideas and people certainly change over time, and it's defintely allowed, but the disconnect between what Cludleigh says she wants and what she believes is very stark. Writers like Anne Bradstreet tend to give me the same contradicting feeling while reading all the different works. Poems writen by the same person can vary in topic, tone, and even voice and form throughout the years. Tragic events happen that could completely change the ideals of the author speaking or they could've just developed during their lives in a way that is reflected in writing.

Authors cannot be looked at as solid creatures that do not change like anyone else. Everyone's ideas develop. Everyone has a tough spot in life that sends them into a psychological hurricane. It's odd to see this as a commonality for "normal" people, but once someone is in the spotlight (with writing, politics, science, or anything else) it's not uncommon to see the public want them to stay the same. Any changes in thoughts, beliefs, values, etc. is seen as bad and they are criticized for it when they're simply being human. Lives change, feelings and thoughs change, so, naturally, their writing will transform as well.