It is partially a translation and partially an imitation of Francesco Petrarch’s Sonnet 190. It was likely written in the 1530s or 1540s, making it one of the first sonnets written in English.Like those poems, “Whoso List to Hunt” is about love; its speaker describes love as a desperate and violent pursuit, in which a man attempts to hunt down the woman he loves. This pursuit has failed, so the speaker spends the poem explaining why he is giving up the hunt.