Who List Her Hunt Analysis

Poetry cannot help but reflect the era and social content in which it was written, events and personal aspects of the poets life are reflected through the art of poetry, events being celebrations of resistance to the ideals of their time and enculturation. Sir Thomas Wyatt's Renaissance sonnet Whoso List to Hunt 1557 and George Byron's Victorian era She Walks in Beauty 1813 are deemed interesting material for comparison, despite the two centuries that separate their creation, both of the personas speak of females in an idealised manner, they deny them a voice and even automous thought. These poems represent love in ways that situate them firmly in their eras, this allows for speculation as to the stimuli that have inspired their creation,
Two poems alike in theme but from different centuries evidently share more similarities than differences. Thomas Wyatt's Whoso List to Hunt portrays the personas love as something to be hunted, Wyatt points out that the persona knows of a worthy hind (female deer) to be hunted, the hind being a metaphor for the women. This reflects that in the era the poem was composed, women were loved for their materialistic features. A similar kind of love is displayed through George Byron's poem She Walks in Beauty, the persona admires the effortless harmony of the women's looks, it is noted that Bryron never states that the persona loves the unnamed beauty ‘’Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt// As well as I, may spend his time in vain’’ These two lines describe how the persona acknowledges that other men would be admiring or in this instance hunting his love, but he doesn’t not doubt her love for
Throughout Wyatt’s time near the royal family, it is believed he fell for King Henry the VIII’s wife Anne Boleyn. This lead to speculation that his sonnet Whoso List to Hunt was indeed about his love for Anne Boleyn. George Byron (17880- 1824) is known as one of the great romantic poets, but in this context ‘romantic’ is used a term to describe the artist and philosophical movement that refined the ways in which people in western cultures though a about the world and more importantly themselves. Byron’s poem She Walks in Beauty is one of his most famous poems, the unnamed beauty the persona describes is believed to be inspired by young women, who happened to be the wife of his cousin, who Byron met at a party. The hunting motif throughout Byron’s poem, reflects cultural activities of this era. In the medieval period hunting was a sport only exclusive to the royals and the aristocracy, it was a privilege of sorts. Hunting it referred to in a number of Wyatt’s other poems. In ‘They Flee from me’, there is a relationship described very similar to Whoso List to Hunt, a women being hunted. The Romantic Movement was a huge influence for Byron’s poem She Walks in Beauty, the movement celebrated power, passion and emotions. The passion celebrated in this era evidently influenced the passion for the beauty of the women in Byron’s poem. The