Talk:Whoso list to hunt

“Whoso …” offers a very different tone and perspective. Here again there is a central metaphor to be identified: amorous pursuit of a lovely woman is compared implicitly to hunting a wild and elusive deer. But the hunter/lover in this poem, though so exhausted and frustrated that he is on the verge of giving up the chase, is able to look mockingly at himself (4-8), and even to direct some mockery and sarcasm toward his rivals (9,10). The image of the deer in the final 4 lines (points out the pun “deer” / “dear” favorit among medieval and Renaissance poets) is one of the most arresting (striking, likely to hold the attention) in all Wyatt’s poetry. This deer is, paradoxically, all the more inaccessible and wild for being the privileged pet of some nobleman (13). What reason is there in this poem to think that the speaker is a lover trying to discourage himself from pursuing an unavailable woman and not simply a hunter who has given up following a deer= He doesn’t want to kill the deer; he wants to hold her and though the deer is wild, she is also a pet to some noble “Caesar.” If the deer is a woman, what impression of her does the poem create? She is cool, inaccessible and beautiful. Who is Caesar (13): probable reference to the king or a noble lord. Caesar is the title given to Roman emperors.