BAYONET CHARGE

Bayonet Charge Context

Ted Hughes (1830-1998)

Ted Hughes was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008 The Times ranked Hughes fourth on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

Bayonet Charge was written and published in 1957 but concentrates on the battles of First World War. Hughes had spent time in the military as a mechanic before going to university but his father had served in and survived the First World War.

Referred to as 'going over the top' in WW1, solider were expected to fix bayonets to their rifles and charge at the enemy, leading to close quarter combat. As we saw with Wilfred Owen, during WW1 writers began to question the reasons for fighting and what it would achieve when they were aware of the human cost of conflict.

Bayonet Charge - Analysis

Suddenly he awoke and was running

The opening in medias res gives a sense of suddenness to the action. This, and the fact that the soldier has just woken suggests a dreamlike quality to the poem.

In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations Was he the hand pointing that second?

An external force seems to be acting on him. The stars suggests fate. The nations might suggest politics. Both the cold and the second hand implies he hs a sense of his own insignificance in the midst of a global conflict.

Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like flame And crawled in a threshing circle.

As with The Prelude and Kamikaze, the encounter with nature is transformative. The hare seems shocked, terrified, perhaps also in pain. The description of the hare here might equally apply to the soldier. The experience seems to provide the soldier with a moment of reflection in which he questions the reasons for being at war.