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The best Mametz Wood study guide on the planet. The fastest way to understand the poem's meaning, themes, form, rhyme scheme, meter, and poetic devices.
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Then he leapt back on the terrace, pulled off his shirt, and stood there among the skull-like coconuts with green shadows from the palms and the forest sliding over his skin.
- Summary
- Analysis of Mametz Wood
- Historical Background
The poem takes a reflective journey into Mametz Wood, the final resting place of nearly 4000 Welsh soldiers who gave their lives in service to the country, and who, in return, were accused of cowardice (though this accusation was later withdrawn, it soured relations between the commanding officers for quite some time). ‘Mametz Wood‘ is a deeply slo...
Stanza One
The poem opens with the most delicate placing of words – ‘for years afterwards the farmers found them’, Owen begins, and the use of the word ‘found them’ implies genuine care on behalf of the farmers, an image that is further strengthened by the end phrase of the stanza – ‘as they tended the land back into itself’. The reference to the soldiers as ‘the wasted young’ shows again the futility and the violence of the war; Owen Sheers is writing in a generation where war is seen as wasteful rathe...
Stanzas Two and Three
Notice the delicacy of the images used to talk about the soldiers’ remains; whereas one would expect bones to be compared to something like iron, metal, wood, or stone, the poet has chosen a different analogyfor their remains: ‘a chit of bone, the china plate of a shoulder blade’, he says, thus showing both the fragmented nature of the remains, as well as their fragility. China plates are generally considered to be priceless, as well as delicate, and the bones have been elevated from natural...
Stanza Four
However, the war is now over, and the land watches over the dead soldiers. The fact that these bones have been discovered after laying there for so many years shows that the earth itself is trying to make sure that they are remembered, that their sacrifice is not in vain, and that their memories will live on in the lives of the living. Rather than the living plucking them wilfully from the grave, the earth itself gives them up to scrutiny, and in this way, it seems as though a rebirth of thei...
“I really wrote this because while I was there they uncovered a shallow grave of twenty Allied soldiers who had been buried very very quickly but whoever had buried them had taken the time to actually link their arms, arm-in-arm, and when I saw a photograph of this grave I just knew that it was one of those images that had burned itself onto my min...
Sep 29, 2012 · Sheers uses enjambment to link line 5 to line 6 and extend slightly the metaphor in “the blown / and broken bird's egg of a skull.” The image of the shattered bird's egg emphasises the fragility of the skull, and the alliteration with the “b” sound intensifies the description.
Alliteration: It occurs in “an antique,” “stone/ Stand,” “sunk a shattered,” “cold command,” etc. Metaphor: The “sneer of cold command” contains a metaphor. Here, the ruler’s contempt for his subjugates is compared to the ruthlessness of a military commander.
The short "a" sound in "half" and "shattered" is repeated. The "a" sound is actually repeated throughout the poem, in words like "traveller," "antique," "vast," and even "Ozymandias" himself. Like alliteration, assonance can be used to make a poem more interesting and enjoyable to listen to.
People also ask
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What does the speaker recall about a ruins of a statue?
Essentially it is devoted to a single metaphor: the shattered, ruined statue in the desert wasteland, with its arrogant, passionate face and monomaniacal inscription (“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”).
