Transcript Mametz Wood - teachingfromtheedge

What?
• Understand the language, structure &
themes of the poem.
• Explore the historical context of the
poem.
• Create a comprehensive set of
revision notes on ‘Mametz Wood’.
How?
• Looking at images
• Listening to a commentary
• Carousel
Why?
• In preparation for GCSE English
Literature Paper 2: Poetry Across
Time, May 2013.
The Battle of Mametz Wood
The Poet
• Owen Sheers was
born in Fiji in 1974
• Brought up in
Abergavenny, South
Wales.
• He is an award
winning novelist &
poet.
The Battle of Mametz Wood
• The scene of fierce fighting during the Battle of the
Somme.
• One of the bloodiest battles of the First World War.
• Soldiers of the Welsh division were ordered to
take Mametz Wood, the largest area of trees on the
battlefield.
• The generals thought this would take a few hours. It
ended up lasting five days with soldiers fighting face-toface with the enemy.
• There were 4,000 casualties, with 600 dead. The Welsh
succeeded but their bravery and sacrifice was never
really acknowledged.
Listen
• Listen to this commentary by Own Sheers
about his poem and take notes!
Learning Check
• Write down 3 things that you have learnt
about ‘Mametz Wood’ so far this lesson.
Carousel
• Move around the room taking notes on
each of the 4 key areas.
• You have no more than 5 minutes at each
stop!
Form & Structure
•
Mametz Wood is written in three-line stanzas. The length of the lines
changes. In some cases (for instance lines 4 and 12) the longer lines very
clearly break up the neat form of the poem. These suggest the uneven
ploughed field or the chits of bone rising out of the ground.
•
The use of full-stops shows there is a clear, regular structure within the
poem: a single stanza is followed by a pair of stanzas, then another single
stanza is followed by another pair. The final, seventh stanza acts as a
conclusion.
•
This structure reflects the changing focus of the poem – from the land (the
single stanzas one and four) then bones and people (the paired stanzas
that follow).
•
The final stanza then combines these three elements into a single image:
the 'unearthed' skulls singing in celebration.
Language
•
The poem appears to be written in very plain, almost prosaic (everyday) language. There is a very
subtle use of sound, throughout, however. This expresses the overall theme (the poem is a kind of
hymn to the dead). It also builds towards the final image: the unearthed bones appear to be
singing.
•
There is no rhyme scheme, but assonance and alliteration mean the stanzas are linked by
sounds. The first stanza, for example, starts with the soft sound of "farmers found". We then hear
the harder 'b' of "blades" and "back" which is picked up in the second stanza
with "blade", "blown" and "broken bird's egg". The next stanza also has "breaking blue". Along with
the chipped sound of bone in "chit" and "china" this form of alliteration perhaps echoes of the
sound of gunfire and battlefield destruction.
•
Across stanzas three and four there is the wary 'w' sound of "white", "were","walk… towards the
wood" and a "wound working" of the stanza that follows it. This stanza in turn introduces
the sibilant "stands sentinel" and "surface of the skin".
•
Lines 14/15 uses assonance to play of the long 'a' sound in "arm", "dance" and"macabre", a
sound echoed in "outlasted" in stanza six which also has the most striking "sound effect" of the
poem. In "socketed heads titled back" a series of sharp rapid sounds evoke the moment the men
were strafed with machine-gun fire and died.
•
The visual image of the soldiers' heads being thrown back by the impact of bullets is suddenly
switched in the final stanza, however: their heads are back and jaws open because they are
singing. The sounds of the final stanza contain a series of clear vowel changes: 'i', 'u', 'o', 'er', and
'a'. It is as if the men were doing the traditional voice exercise of 'do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do…'. This
stanza also contains the only clear rhyme in the poem: "sung/tongues".
Imagery
• This concluding stanza also pulls together the disparate images of
the poem: the earth, the bones and the people those bones came
from. Right from the start, however, Sheers mixes his imagery to
show how there is no simple division between mankind on one side
and 'mother nature' on the other.
• It is the farmers who "tended the land". It is the land that needs
healing (an example of pathetic fallacy). The references to "bird's
egg" and "nesting" are used to describe a broken skull (in line 6) and
hidden machine guns (in line 9). The bones themselves are
described in terms of "china plate" and a "mosaic" while their
position in the ground recalls a strangely comic form of dance
routine.
Themes
•
Sheers reflects on how the events of that week in 1916 have been buried
and forgotten. The bits of bone that are turned up seem just the same as old
bits of china – curious relics of history. The violence of the day, the
shattering of the bones by gunfire and mortar shell is merely "mimicked" by
the flint. Their skeletons even look almost comic.
•
Sheers could have simply retold the historical events of the battle. By
approaching the subject in this slightly strange way, though, Sheers
highlights the injustice of history. The poem therefore is about offering some
kind of justice or redemption for the dead – and to the land that has held
them. By being 'unearthed' the bones have not just literally come free of the
ground, they have in some way become themselves again. They have
become part of a poem that gives them a voice they have lacked all these
years.
•
In Sheers' work, the three elements have become reconciled: the earth is
free of the bones and the bones have become the people they once were.
He writes it like a hymn to their memory – but a hymn they sing themselves.
Essay Practise
• How does the poet write about death in
‘Mametz Wood’?
• Create an essay plan for the question
above.