who so list to hount i knowe where is an hynde - sir thomas wyatt

Stanza 1

“Who so list to hount I know where is an hynde,”: repetition of title-demonstrates to a reader that title is a formal address as it is repeated like a letter

First person-personal experience

Offers a lady to the reader almost as a challenge. This reflects poems patriarchal social context

“But as for me, helas , I may no more”: meaning “alas”:negative connotations

He pities himself or seems to be reflecting in dismay

Pause before and after suggests he is tired and defeated

Caesura could represent break in telling story as he contemplates

Assonance makes tone weary

“The vayne travaill hath wearied me so sore”:

“Vayne” work suggests it was waste of work/hopeless love thus he deters other lovers

“Travaill” Anne Boleyn raise in France

Assonance combined with verb emphasises his pain, harsh assonance of ‘so’ sound and creates a literary raw pain:heart ache has become physical

Stanza 2

“Yet may I by no means my wearied mynde”: suggests he is still enchanted by her, as though under a spell

“Drawe from the deere but as she fleeth afore”: D are long and drawn out, reflects dreamy state

Deere-prey competition-women seen as prize of obsession

Alliteration of “f” sound links the deer to the speaker

Enjambment separates them, mirrors how he is connected to her but she isn’t to him: follows to third line- love is making him suffer physically

“sithens in a nett i seke to hold the wynde.”: reinforce that she can never be his (can’t hold wind)

-comparison of deer to wind is oxymornic- wind cannot be held, futility of hunt

stanza 3

“who list her hount, i put him owte of dowbte,”: volta- first 8 lines= failed hunts- last six lines=giving up with warnings/ shows futility of hunt for others

“as well as i may spend his tyme in vain.”: suggests he will selfishly chase her

“and graven with diamondes in letters plain”: “graven”-harsh verb decsribing indenting something- implies “hynde” is an object/pet/possession and has a diamond collar- she belongs to someone of high status, phrase is contradictory- something so beautiful is being suppressed- she is in a beautiful cage

“there is written her faier neck rounde abowte:”

“noli me tangere for caesars i ame”: touch me not for caesars i am/ diamonds embelish and highlight deer’s beauty yet warn captors off her is contradictory- branded by Henry VII/ possible allusion to jesus saying “touch me not” to mary magdalene after resurrection. casts women as something purer than men persecuting her./ latin integration= renaissance-shift but not fully latin= language changing

“and wylde for to hold though i seme tame”: appears domestic but is really wild and therefore difficult to make ones own- another contradiction

sir thomas wyatt

• poem alludes to an affair wyatt had with anne boleyn which he was imprisoned for in 1536

• poem published anonymously in 1537

• christian church was collapsing, political correction was ambigous and taboo so peots used conceits and extended metaphors to create allegories to protect position and status

• member of court under henry VII

• wyatts 96 lore poems appeared pothsumously in 1557

iambic pentameter

• metrical ambiguity- in first line it is 11 syllables rather than 10

• sense of tripping motion - mirroring how speaker has fallen for women

• metre than stablises, 2-3

rhyme sceme

• repetitive, controlled and ordered suggesting speaker writes from point in time where has reflected on the experience

• contradicted by present tense

• mainly monosyllble words-factual and consistent tone

• after volta rhyme scheme changes- volta represents change

• perfect rhyme scheme in quatrains with couplet-steadily loves her