Bayonet Charge

AO1 respond to texts critically and imaginatively; select and evaluate relevant textual detail to illustrate and support interpretations

First watch this dramatisation of the poem

You should DEFINITELY read this presentation which develops explanation of the poem, is thoroughly annotated and is very useful to read alongside the BBC Bitesize revision section. 

AO2 explain how language, structure and form contribute to writers’ presentation of ideas, themes and settings

Structure: the poem is in three stanzas and we start in the middle of  the 'Bayonet Charge' with the words 'Suddenly' (the same word that starts 'Belfast Confetti') which hurls the reader into the confusion of the battle without any warning. We get the sense of urgency and confusion of the solider as he heads 'over the top' and across the battlefield. The use of the enjambment in the first stanza gives the reader the sense of urgency and running as does the repetition of 'raw...raw'; it's as if the soldier does not have time to think through what is happening to him.

The second stanza is almost in slow-motion: the soldier realises where he is and what is happening to him and it seems unreal 'in bewilderment then he almost stopped -', the use of the hyphen underlines this confusion. He is continuing to run but the experience feels unreal to him 'in what cold clockwork of the stars and nations was he the hand pointing that second?' 

The final stanza shows the dawning realisation of the danger he is in: 'his terror's touchy dynamite'. Throughout the poem enjambment is used to give the sense of running: the lines lead into the next but the sense of confusion and conflict is caused by caesuras within the lines which break up the flow and give the sense of halting breathing:

He was running

Like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs

Listening between his footfalls for the reason

Of his still running, and his foot hung like

Statuary in mid-stride. Then the shot-slashed furrows

Notice, the caesura after 'statuary in mid stride.' which reflects the sense of stopping but them immediately the stanza uses enjambment to move into the final stanza, showing that he cannot stop.

Language:
repetition: 'raw, in raw-seamed hot khaki'
simile: 'He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm'
physicality: 'sweat heavy', 'stumbling', 'dazzled' 'Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest'.
Irony and bitter tone in listing: 'King, honour, human dignity, etcetera'

Nature versus conflict: 'Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge/That dazzled with rifle fire' and 'Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame / And crawled in a threshing circle'
Sibilance 'shot-slashed furrows'
Metaphor 'Bullets smacking the belly out of the air'

Context

Ted Hughes was a poet from Yorkshire and this poem was written in the 1960s but seems to be a homage to World War 1 (in which his father fought) or to the poetry of Wilfred Owen. Hughes is best known as a nature poet (see 'Hawk Roosting') and there are elements of nature in this poem but, unusually for Hughes, it is clearly about a man's experience.