Poetry - Whoso

Question 1

Context

Answer 1

• Period of political turmoil
• Sonnet is said to be about Wyatt and Anne Boleyn’s affair

Question 2

Key points

Answer 2

• Courtly, unattainable love
• Hunting as a sport of upper class men
• Based on Wyatt’s chase of Anne Boleyn

Question 3

Structure / form

Answer 3

• Iambic pentameter
  
  • Reflects the continuous chase, relentless devotion
• Sonnet - separated into octave and sestet

Question 4

Language

Answer 4

• Use of conceit (extended metaphor)
• Consonance and irony

Question 5

Key quotations

Answer 5

“Whoso list to hount, I know where is a hynde”

• Reflects poems social context, patriarchal society where women were viewed as possessions to obtain
• Speaker’s hunt for the subject, represented through the ongoing conceit of a deer, mirrors Gatsby’s relentless pursuit of Daisy

“as she fleeth afore / Faynting I followe”

• Fricative alliteration ‘f’ sound links the deer to the speaker, however they are separated by the line break, demonstrates how in the speaker’s idealised vision, they are connected, however in reality she is not his
• Reflects Gatsby’s romantic imagination, he believes that Daisy is his true love

“I seke to hold the wynde”

• Metaphorical comparison of this deer to the wind, demonstrates the unattainability of his dream, holding the wind is oxymoronic - futility, the deer will never be captured
• “Forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath”, oxymoronic description of Gatsby’s dream demonstrates the unattainability

“Graven with diamonds” / “Cesar’s I am”

• Symbols of wealth that separate the subject from the speaker, already belongs to someone else
• Daisy and Gatsby are of separate classes, restricts them from being together, therefore she married Tom