Mametz Wood (war) Flashcards
(11 cards)
1
Q
Structure
A
- 7 tercets (three line stanza’s) which is common in welsh poetry
- No rhyme accept for ‘run and gun’. Full rhyme shows the importance of it.
- Free verse (more common for modern literature)
2
Q
Context
A
- The 38th welsh division. They were fighting to capture the wood.
- Battle of the somme. 59,000 were killed injured or taken prisoner.
- There was a decision that there was no repatriatoin. The men weren’t moved from the earth, therefore were inadvertenly buried in mametz wood.
3
Q
‘Wasted young’
A
The adjective ‘wasted’ conveys a sense of carelessness from the government. Criticism of his own country.
4
Q
‘A chit of bone, the china plate of a soulder blade’
A
- Samantic feild of pottery ‘chit’ and ‘china bone’ conveys the fragility of their bones. Suggestions of innocence and the fragility of life.
- Aliteration of ‘ch’ replicates the sound of pottery clinking together.
5
Q
‘the relic of a finger’
A
AO3 - During the middle ages you could buy religous bones from saints. Signifying how the bones belong to the past.
6
Q
‘broken bird’s egg of a skull’
A
- Plosive aliteration of ‘b’.
- Juxtaposes the fragility of the bones and shows the harsh conditions the bones were broken in
7
Q
‘where they were told to walk not run, towards the wood and its nesting guns’
A
- Full rhyme (the only rhyme) highlights the significance of it.
- ‘Nesting’ is associated with nature + life. Juxtaposition of nature vs technology. Comftorable waiting in danger.
8
Q
‘the earth stands sential’
A
- Nature coming alive. It acts as a guard, protecting the soldiers who died (also seen when the earth goes over them and takes care of their bodies).
9
Q
‘like a wound working a foreign body to the surface to the skin’
A
- Simile. ‘Foreign body’ suggests that the bones shouldn’t be there in the first place. Doesn’t belong. Man vs nature.
10
Q
‘a broken mosaic’
A
- Fragments of bone. Conveys how there is division because of war.
11
Q
‘As if the notes they had sung have only now, with this unearthing, slipped from their absent tounge’
A
- They had no voice, only in death will they be seen.
