Mametz Wood Literary Elements

The poem is from the point of view of someone visiting the scene of the historic battle at Mametz Wood in the present day. The unidentified speaker describes both the contemporary scene of the graves and the past conflict of the battle.

The poem is composed of seven tercets, with no delineated meter or regular rhyme scheme.

Metaphors:
-"a chit of bone, the china plate of a shoulder blade, / the relic of a finger, the blown / and broken bird's egg of a skull" (Lines 4-6): These various metaphors describe the bones of the soldiers. The poet is very explicit in these comparisons.
-"nesting machine guns" (Line 9): The machine guns are compared to nesting animals, implying a natural behavior that contrasts with the intended purpose of guns.
-"the earth stands sentinel" (Line 10): The earth is compared to a guard watching over the scene.

Similes:
-"like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin" (Line 12): The reflection that the earth makes is compared to a wound working a foreign body to the skin's surface. If the earth (and humanity) does not do the reflective work necessary to reckon with what happened, then the wound will fester.
-"as if the notes they had sung / have only now, with this unearthing, / slipped from their absent tongues" (Lines 19-21): The open jaw bones of the uncovered soldiers are described as if they are letting out the notes the men had sung in the past.

Alliteration (Specifically, Consonance):
-"For years afterwards the farmers found them" (Line 1): The "f" sound repeats.
-"A chit of bone, the china plate of a shoulder blade" (Line 4): The "ch" sound repeats.
"...the blown / and broken bird's egg..." (Lines 5-6): The "b" sound repeats.
-"...wound working..." (Line 12): The "w" sound repeats.

Assonance:
-"the china plate of a shoulder blade" (Line 4): The words "plate" and "blade" mirror each other as a result of the "ate" and "ade" sounds.
"the relic of a finger" (Line 5): The "i" sound appears in the words "relic" and "finger."
"all mimicked now in flint...in white" (Line 7): The "i" sound appears again in the words "mimicked," "in," "flint," and "white."

The skeletons of the soldiers are uncovered "in boots that outlasted them," showing that a material designed to be worn by soldiers in conflict is more durable than the very lives of those soldiers (Line 16).

War Poetry, Elegy

A field beside Mametz Wood (site of a 1916 battle) where farmers now use the land to grow food. Written in both the past and present tenses.

The tone is reflective, bleak, and straightforward. The poet depicts gruesome details from the battle at Mametz Wood, reflecting on the implications of war on humans and the landscape.

Protagonist: The young men killed in battle. Antagonist: The violence of war that ended the lives of the soldiers.

The conflict at the heart of the poem is that the violent force of war wastes the lives of young soldiers and leaves its mark on the landscape. This conflict is uncovered as the bones of the soldiers are unearthed.

The climax of the poem occurs in Lines 13-15 when twenty men are discovered buried with their arms linked. Their skeletons, "paused mid dance-macabre," have been locked in a restless in-between state, unable to complete their final dance of death and find peace. This scene and subsequent stanzas are the most intense moments in the poem.

The first stanza, where farmers uncover the bones of soldiers as they "tended the land back into itself," foreshadows the reflective work that the personified earth undertakes as it "reach[es] back into itself for reminders of what happened" (Line 11). Tending the land refers to the crop rotation, cultivation, pest control, and harvesting work that farmers do, but to tend to something can also imply taking care of a wound. This implication appears in the simile "like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin," comparing the earth's reflective work with a wound expelling a foreign body (Line 12). This foreshadowing operates on both a physical and a symbolic level, as the literal unearthing reveals meanings uncovered from relics of the past.

The "wasted young" alludes to the soldiers that fought and died at the battle of Mametz Wood (Line 2).

Synecdoche:
-"broken mosaic of bone linked arm in arm" (Line 13): The arm bones make up a mosaic: a type of art where different pieces (unique in material, size, and color) are applied to a surface. A mosaic represents a whole created from diverse parts. That here it is broken illustrates a discordance despite the fact that the bones are linked arm in arm.

The earth is personified as it "stands sentinel, / reaching back into itself for reminders of what happened" (Lines 10-11). Like in other poems by Sheers, this personification of the earth serves as a guide for humans to learn from.