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Bayonet Charge (1957)
Ted Hughes (1930-1998)
Story
• The poem focuses on a single soldier’s experience of a charge towards enemy lines – it describes his thoughts
and actions as he tries to stay alive.
• The soldier’s overriding emotion and motivation is fear which has replaced the more patriotic ideals that he
held before the violence began.
Structure
• The poem starts in medias res and covers the soldier’s movements and thoughts over a short space of time.
• The first stanza sees the soldier acting on instinct (short sentences = fast pace), but time seems to stand still in
the second stanza (long sentences = slow pace), when the soldier begins to think about his situation.
• In the final stanza, he gives up his thoughts and ideals and seems to have lost his humanity.
Form
• The poem uses enjambment and caesura and has lines of uneven length; this creates an irregular rhythm,
which mirrors the soldier’s struggle to run through the mud as well as the soldier stopping to reflect upon his
situation.
• The narrator uses the pronoun ‘he’ rather than naming the soldier, suggesting that he is a universal figure who
could represent any young soldier.
Context
Bayonet Charge:
• Unlike most popular WW1 poetry, ‘Bayonet Charge’ was not written and published around the time of war,
instead coming out in 1957, 39 years after the end of the conflict.
• Referred to as “going over the top’ [of trenches], fixing bayonets and charging the enemy for close quarters
combat was an often bloody and costly way to try and gain ground during WW1
• Pre-WW1 poetry often tried to honour and glorify war, combat and those who fought for their country. During the
war and the following years, the focus shifted towards questioning why people do the things they do and the
human cost of conflict.
Ted Hughes:
• Born 1930, Poet Laureate from 1984 to his death of cancer in 1998.
• Grew up in countryside in Yorkshire.
• Passionate about animals and nature.
• Hughes’ father served in WW1, making it through to the end.
• Devoted to poetry from a young age, despite a lack of income.
• Hughes spent two years serving as a mechanic in the RAF.
• He said that all that counts in life is, ‘how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being
hurt or caught out or humiliated’.
Bayonet Charge (1957)
Ted Hughes (1930-1998)
Story
• The poem focuses on a single soldier’s experience of a charge towards enemy lines – it describes his thoughts
and actions as he tries to stay alive.
• The soldier’s overriding emotion and motivation is fear which has replaced the more patriotic ideals that he
held before the violence began.
Structure
• The poem starts in medias res and covers the soldier’s movements and thoughts over a short space of time.
• The first stanza sees the soldier acting on instinct (short sentences = fast pace), but time seems to stand still in
the second stanza (long sentences = slow pace), when the soldier begins to think about his situation.
• In the final stanza, he gives up his thoughts and ideals and seems to have lost his humanity.
Form
• The poem uses enjambment and caesura and has lines of uneven length; this creates an irregular rhythm,
which mirrors the soldier’s struggle to run through the mud as well as the soldier stopping to reflect upon his
situation.
• The narrator uses the pronoun ‘he’ rather than naming the soldier, suggesting that he is a universal figure who
could represent any young soldier.
Context
Bayonet Charge:
• Unlike most popular WW1 poetry, ‘Bayonet Charge’ was not written and published around the time of war,
instead coming out in 1957, 39 years after the end of the conflict.
• Referred to as “going over the top’ [of trenches], fixing bayonets and charging the enemy for close quarters
combat was an often bloody and costly way to try and gain ground during WW1
• Pre-WW1 poetry often tried to honour and glorify war, combat and those who fought for their country. During the
war and the following years, the focus shifted towards questioning why people do the things they do and the
human cost of conflict.
Ted Hughes:
• Born 1930, Poet Laureate from 1984 to his death of cancer in 1998.
• Grew up in countryside in Yorkshire.
• Passionate about animals and nature.
• Hughes’ father served in WW1, making it through to the end.
• Devoted to poetry from a young age, despite a lack of income.
• Hughes spent two years serving as a mechanic in the RAF.
• He said that all that counts in life is, ‘how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being
hurt or caught out or humiliated’.
