'mametz wood' - owen sheers

Question 1

describe the context of owen sheers:

Answer 1

• sheers raised in south wales.
• wrote poem in 2005, when war detritus was still being uncovered in Mametz Wood.

Question 2

describe the context of mametz wood:

Answer 2

• battle of the Somme, WW1.
• the British army gained 760,000 additional volunteers within the first two months of WW1, and men were grouped together based on where they came from. the Welsh division has the task of reclaiming Mametz Wood from German soldiers.
• shot down, 4000 men died.
• eventually captured Mametz Wood, but still viewed as ill-trained and poorly led.

Question 3

analyse the title, ‘mametz wood’:

Answer 3

could foreground themes of place, war, and death.

Question 4

analyse the first stanza:

START

Answer 4

language:
- ‘for years afterwards’ suggests effects of war are long-lasting.
- ‘found them’. found (verb): soldiers are passive. they’re inactive and powerless. them (pronoun): soldiers are anonymous. shows how destructive war has been.
- ‘the wasted young’ critical tone when describing soldiers’ deaths. criticising soldiers’ leaders or war generally.

Question 5

analyse the second stanza:

START

Answer 5

imagery:
- ‘china plate’ ‘relic’ ‘broken bird’s egg’ these metaphors all compare soldiers to fragile things.

language:
- body parts mentioned (‘bone’ ‘shoulder blade’ ‘finger’ ‘skull’) are not connected. bone is so generic - small and undistinguishable. random assortment of bones, implies war is massively destructive.
- juxtaposition of ‘bird’s egg’ and ‘skull’ highlights destructive force of war. ‘bird’s eggs’ symbolise new life, hope. ‘skull’ symbolises death and danger.

structure:
- alliterative ‘ch’ sound. assonance (repetition of vowel sounds): ‘a’ ‘o’. alliterative ‘b’. draws attention to broken images.

Question 6

analyse the third stanza:

START

Answer 6

structure:
- end stopping the final line creates a sense of finality, a non-negotiable end. symbolises the death of the soldiers.

language:
- ‘they were told to walk, not run’ critical tone. sheers is mocking and criticising the instructions given by the people in charge of the division. highlights the ridiculousness.

imagery:
- metaphor ‘nesting machine guns’. compares them to birds, makes them sound predatory. soldiers are victims or prey. possibly links to the ‘broken bird’s eggs’ - the nesting machine guns are birthing death. destruction of war is able to tear apart our linguistic associations.

Question 7

analyse the fourth stanza:

MIDDLE

Answer 7

language:
- ‘reminders of what happened’ vague, euphemistic language suggests the atrocities of war are too terrible to think about.

imagery:
- ‘earth stands sentinel’ Earth is guarding and watching (sentinel) over the soldiers, implying that it is working with them. how man and place interacts.
- ‘like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin’ hopeful image, as wounds do eventually heal.

Question 8

analyse the fifth stanza:

MIDDLE

Answer 8

language:
- ‘this morning’ the adverbial phrase indicates that the war’s impact is still being felt ‘today’.

imagery:
- ‘broken mosaic of bone’ metaphor hints at the soldiers’ complete destruction. alludes to powerlessness of soldiers. also suggests that there is something beautiful - Sheers is suggesting that the soldiers’ sacrifices were beautiful and should be honoured.

Question 9

analyse the sixth stanza:

END

Answer 9

structure:
- repetition of harsh, plosive sounds (t, k, b, d, g) could mimic the machine gun fire that ‘tilted back’ the soldiers’ heads at an angle. shows that war’s power is so strong that it forces itself into the very sounds of poetry.

imagery:
- shocking images: ‘socketed heads tilted back at an angle’ emphasises the brutality and wastefulness of war. took the lives of so many young men.

language:
- embedded clause ‘,those that have them,’ emphasises the devastation of war. makes it clear that some soldiers were terribly disfigured.

Question 10

analyse the overall form of the poem:

Answer 10

• Mametz Wood is an elegy (a sad and mournful poem, a lament for the dead).
• long sentences and frequent use of enjambment and caesura help to create a slow, reflective tone.
• Sheers is paying tribute to the soldiers that history forgot.
• neat, parallel lines could represent the ploughed fields. small, fragmentary tercets (three line stanzas) could represent the remains of the soldiers.

Question 11

analyse the final stanza (seventh):

END

Answer 11

language:
- ‘with this unearthing’ by suggesting that the soldiers are now freed, Sheers may be conveying the idea that we must acknowledge the atrocities of war if we are to move on from it.
- ‘slipped’ (accident?) ‘absent’ (lack of agency?) soldiers are presented as passive and powerless. reinforces idea from the beginning of the poem.

Question 12

what is the poem Mametz Wood about?

Answer 12

farmers are finding the remains of 38th (Welsh) division in the woods, years after the war had passed. the remains of the soldiers are comparable to fragments, showing how violent their deaths were. after finding several fragments, the farmers discover ‘twenty men buried in one long grave’ who are frozen in a scene of death.

Question 13

what is the mood of the poem?

Answer 13

being an elegy, has a sad, reflective tone, shown by ‘and even now the Earth stands sentinel’. however, there are times when there is a more critical tone, such as ‘wasted young’ ‘told to walk, not run’, suggesting that the soldiers’ deaths were not necessary.

Question 14

what is the motivation for writing this poem?

Answer 14

as a Welsh poet, Sheers may have written this poem to acknowledge the soldiers that history forgot. their sacrifice is honoured by the many references to their deaths, such as ‘paused mid dance-macabre’. Sheers presents the soldiers’ deaths as unnecessary, as seen in the ‘wasted young’ suggesting he’s criticising those responsible for their deaths: their leaders, who were known to be inadequate.