Whoso List to Analyze In Thomas Wyatt’s “Whoso List to Hunt,” the poetic trope of unrequited love is embodied, as well as the Petrarchan sonnet structure perfected. The thesis of this poem is presented directly in the very first line, where Wyatt relinquishes his fight to capture the doe by announcing that he knows exactly where to find her in case others see themselves more determined or competent than he. Wyatt is exhausted. The doe is coveted. The poem exemplifies the Petrarchan sonnet structure by clearly separating the confused, unresolved octave from the concluding sestet. Within the first eight lines, the poet asserts his desire, yet inability, to capture a deer. Wyatt highlights the deer’s femininity by making the word “hind” an unstressed syllable. This poem is written in iambic pentameter. It is simply too exhausting and futile for the speaker to continue chasing after her, but his passions nearly override his mental state. He is “wearied,” “sore,” and “fainting,” but she is intrinsically …show more content…
Wyatt asserts that the pairing of the doe and her owner is unjust in the final line: “And wild, for to hold, though I seem tame.” Throughout the sestet, the poet is determined that he would be a better match for her than her actual owner. He is down-to-earth like her and feels that he would take better care of her. The reader knows this because of difference in word choice used when describing the doe’s keeper and himself. When describing his wish of ownership over the doe, Wyatt repeats the word “hold,” which establishes a sense of a willful, gentle coupling rather than ownership. The resolution of this poem is for the speaker to accept defeat. Although the doe and her captor make an unjust couple, Wyatt stands no chance changing that. The reader feels sympathetic to the plight of the speaker because of the universal tendency to wonder about a missed opportunity with ‘the one that got
The similarities between the hunting scenes and the courtly love scenes are a key part in the story. The bond between lady Bertilak’s effort to trap Gawain and the lords effort to catch his quarry, tests Gawain’s efforts to be the perfect knight. A doe is a frightened and unprepared animal and acts much like the Gawain does in the bed room scenes. On lord Bertilak’s hunt he needs to approach the doe stealthy, much like the way lady Bertilak approaches Gawain, in order not to scare him away. During the hunt for the deer, the peasant dogs were on one side and the hunters were on the other, trapping the doe before going in for the kill. The first night when the lady Bertilak enters the r...
Comparing The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd. and the stark contrast of the treatment of an identical theme, that of love within the framework of pastoral life. I intend to look at each poem separately to give my interpretation of the poet's intentions and then discuss their techniques and how the chosen techniques affect the portal of an identical theme. The poem The Passionate Shepherd to His Love appears to be about the Elizabethan courtly ideal of living with the barest necessities, like.
In the second stanza he says “By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing; she had stiffened already, almost cold. I dragged her off” (5-8). In this stanza he is giving great details of what he is doing and what’s happing to the deer. When reading this stanza is like watching a movie, you can see the tail lights and you can see the deer and you can see him pulling the deer out of the road. Also in the second stanza he says “she was large in the belly” (8). This must have meant that the dead dear was
A feeling of mystery and surprise is heavy in her work. The poet’s use of three-line stanzas plays a big role in the nature of the work. Lines 6 and 7 prove this well: “A fresh horse from my stable / which was a willow grove.” In these lines, Swenson has the reader believing that the child is choosing a horse to ride, only to find out that the child is actually carving a play horse because the stable turns out to be a grove from where the
The imposition of the British aggressor is even made apparent through the structure of the work, the two sonnet form stanzas not only highlight the inadequacy of the loveless union, but with their Shakespearean rhyme scheme also imply the cultural dominance of English tradition. The use of half rhymes, such as ‘pulse’ and ‘burst’ or ‘pain’ and ‘within’ leaves the stanzas feel...
Wyatt and Spenser’s poems both depict a hunter who temporarily gives up his pursuit for different reasons. Wyatt’s hunter believes he has no chance with the woman because of the rank and position of the suitor she already has. He considers it necessary to warn others. Spenser’s hunter feels it is useless to chase anymore because he is not getting any closer to winning. The attitudes of the hunters are developed after the chase in each poem. One attitude is developed when the hunter realizes he is being shown that the woman belongs to someone else. He appears annoyed or irritated. The character in Spenser’s poem is bewildered. This attitude develops after he chases her, gives up, and then realizes she welcomes the chase. The poets’ ideas of wildness and tameness are distinctly addressed and quite the contrary. Wyatt thinks that someone may seem tame, but hard to get control of later as expressed in line 14 of the poem “Whoso List to Hunt”. Spenser thinks it’s strange that someone is wild in the beginning and hard to get, but later won over easily. The differences in the poet’s view of love in each of the poems suggest that things be not always as they seem. One can not predict the outcome of a love situation because what looks easy may not be and vice-versa. This is true of everyday life and love.
In ‘All the Pretty Horses’ Luis states ‘among men there was no such communion as among horses and the notion that men can be understood at all was probably an illusion’, by this he means the relationship man has with nature is totally unique, it is sacred; the relationship between men is a misapprehension. In some respects the reader may agree with the statement because it is true, man’s relationship with animals and nature is fairly simple compared to man’s relationship amongst each other which is far more complex due to conflict of opinion and other complications. John Grady Cole’s relationship with Alejandra faced much turmoil and complication, one of the biggest issues they faced was the fact Alejandra’s family condemned their relationship and forbid her to be with him. To a certain extent John’s romance with Alejandra mirrors Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in respects to their forbidden love, however their story does not end in tragedy. Wordsworth shows nature to be more of a companion for man in ‘The Solitary Reaper’. The woman reaps the crops alone in the field singing with a voice so ‘thrilling’ it resonates ‘Long after it was heard no more’. Although she is lonely, she is wholly reliant upon the sustenance she receives and the relationship she has with nature. The poet proceeds to compare her to the Cuckoo and the Nightingale stating ‘No Nightingale did ever chaunt more welcome notes to weary bands’ being compared to birds with such beautiful song surely displays her oneness with nature. Unlike the ‘maiden’ Victor tries to control and dominate nature, this resentment could stem from the fact his mother died of the fever, making him go to extreme lengths in constructing this figure from different body parts to create a cre...
Sir Thomas Wyatt's sixteenth-century lyric "They flee from me" is an enigmatic poem that pleases at least partly because it provides no final certainty about the situation it describes. Yet the poem, while in some respects indefinite and puzzling, is nevertheless quite specific in its presentation of a situation, particularly in the second stanza, and it treats a recognizable human experience--that of having been forsaken by a lover--in an original and intriguing fashion.
Sonnet 130 is Shakespeare’s harsh yet realistic tribute to his quite ordinary mistress. Conventional love poetry of his time would employ Petrarchan imagery and entertain notions of courtly love. Francis Petrarch, often noted for his perfection of the sonnet form, developed a number of techniques for describing love’s pleasures and torments as well as the beauty of the beloved. While Shakespeare adheres to this form, he undermines it as well. Through the use of deliberately subversive wordplay and exaggerated similes, ambiguous concepts, and adherence to the sonnet form, Shakespeare creates a parody of the traditional love sonnet. Although, in the end, Shakespeare embraces the overall Petrarchan theme of total and consuming love.
The structure of the poem logically supports the theme of conflict and "imperialism" in that it is clearly divided into two sections or "camps." The first four stanzas offer a description of "you", the "righteous and heroic" cowboy who brutalizes life without creating new life. The perspective shifts then from predator to prey in the final five stanzas as "I", presented as victimized woman and exploited nature, "addresses" her antagonist. The tone or mood of "Backdrop Addresses Cowboy" also undergoes a change after the first four stanzas when the reader enters the tragic, joyless experience of one who is paying the price of "slaughter and desecration." At this point in the poem, it seems futile to consider whether or not the price should be paid and the metaphoric man-woman tension remains distrubingly unresolved. In terms of form, "Backdrop Addresses Cowboy" is written in open (org...
The average reader cannot help but be affected by Dickinson’s style. The capitalized words draw the reader’s attention. They highlight important key words of the poem. The dashes set apart specific words and phrases, forcing the reader to slow down while reading. The dashes compel the reader to contemplate and ponder over the lines. Thus, whether or not Dickinson had a conscious purpose in her unconventional capitalization and punctuation, they have an undeniable effect on the rhythm of the poem and the perception of the reader.
Emily Dickinson’s poems are giving ample scope for interpretation. At first glance her poems seem simple to interpret because of her brevity but exactly that is what leaves space for phantasy and offers the opportunity for different interpretations. What she really means is therefore vague and difficult to grasp. Through her over usage of dashes, which might dramatize her thoughts, the reader’s power of imagination is induced and he or she is able to accomplish the poem with own ideas. Dashes appear at the end or even within a poem, it could connect both parts, beforehand and afterward, is a caesura, the pause in a line of a verse, or even an ellipsis. Because of all three options it is also difficult to figure out what Dickinson’s intention
In “Sonnet XVII,” the text begins by expressing the ways in which the narrator does not love, superficially. The narrator is captivated by his object of affection, and her inner beauty is of the upmost significance. The poem shows the narrator’s utter helplessness and vulnerability because it is characterized by raw emotions rather than logic. It then sculpts the image that the love created is so personal that the narrator is alone in his enchantment. Therefore, he is ultimately isolated because no one can fathom the love he is encountering. The narrator unveils his private thoughts, leaving him exposed and susceptible to ridicule and speculation. However, as the sonnet advances toward an end, it displays the true heartfelt description of love and finally shows how two people unite as one in an overwhelming intimacy.
Lackluster love is the subject postulated in both sonnets, Petrarch 90 and Shakespeare 130. This is a love that endures even after beauteous love has worn off, or in Petrarch, a love that never was. The Petrarchan sonnet utilizes fantasy to describe love. It depicts love that is exaggerated and unrealistic. Shakespeare’s sonnet, on the other hand, is very sarcastic but it is more realistic as compared to the Petrarch 90. Petrarchan sonnets, also called Italian sonnets were the first sonnets to be written, and they have remained the most common sonnets (Hollander 28). They were named after the Italian poet Petrarch. Its structure takes the form of two stanzas, the first one an octave, in that, it has eight lines, and the next stanza is a sestet, meaning that it has six lines. The rhyme scheme suits the Italian language, which has the feature of being rhyme rich, and it, can take the forms of abbaabba, cdcdcd, or cdecde. These sonnets present an answerable charge in the first stanza, and a turn in the sestet. The sestet is the counter argument of the octave.
During the course of Edmund Spencer’s Amoretti, the “Petrarchan beloved certainly underwent a transformation” (Lever 98); the speaker depicts the beloved as merciless and is not content with being an “unrequited lover” (Roche 1) as present in a Petrarchan sonnet. Throughout Sonnet 37 and Sonnet 54, the speaker provides insight into the beloved not seen within the Petrarchan sonnets; though the speaker does present his uncontrollable love for the beloved, he does so through his dissatisfaction with his position and lack of control. In Sonnet 37, the speaker describes the beloved as an enchantress who artfully captures the lover in her “golden snare” (Spencer, 6) and attempts to warn men of the beloved’s nature. Sonnet 54, the speaker is anguished by the beloved’s ignorance towards his pain and finally denies her humanity. Spencer allows the speaker to display the adversarial nature of his relationship with the beloved through the speaker’s negative description of the beloved, the presentation of hope of escaping from this love, and his discontent with his powerlessness. Spencer presents a power struggle and inverted gender roles between the lover and the beloved causing ultimate frustration for the speaker during his fight for control.