Hello everyone, and welcome to a lesson on understanding the poem "Bayonet Charge." I'm Miss Sutherland, and I'll be teaching you today.

For this lesson, you are going to need your copy of the AQA Power and Conflict anthology.

So make sure you go and get your anthology before you continue with this lesson.

By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to explain how Hughes presents the enduring impact of war.

We have three key words.

The first one is patriotic.

Patriotic means having devotion or love for one's country.

Dehumanise.

Dehumanise means to deprive someone of the qualities that make them human.

And harrowing.

Harrowing means highly distressing.

I'll give you a moment to give those words a reread and potentially write them down if you need to.

Pause video, off you go.

In today's lesson, we'll start off with tracking the poem "Bayonet Charge." We'll read it, and we'll track it to understand what's going on in this poem.

We are then, in the second learning cycle, going to explore the writer's intentions.

That means we'll be learning about Ted Hughes, his inspirations for the poem and what he may have wanted us to get outta the poem.

So let's start off with tracking the poem.

Here are some of the images that appear in the poem "Bayonet Charge." Discuss with your partner what you think this poem is about.

Pause video and discuss.

I heard some really interesting ideas.

Potentially it's about the harming of innocence, potentially it's about an attack.

Let's find out.

Open your anthology now and read the poem "Bayonet Charge." Pause video and have a read now.

I hope you enjoy it.

"Bayonet Charge" is a really powerful poem, isn't it? I particularly like stanza two.

Line 10 and 11 really stood out to me because they strike me as really poignant and I really like how we get an insight into the inner workings of a soldier's brain mid battle.

I think this is a really unique stylistic choice from Hughes.

Do you have part of this poem that's your favourite? I want you to discuss what do you think is happening in this poem.

Pause the video and discuss.

I now want you to choose a word from each stanza that you think summarises its mood or events effectively.

Why did you choose each word? Pause video and pick out your words now.

I'll go for an example of the words that I've chosen.

I chose suddenly from the first stanza, stopped from the second stanza, and plunged from the third stanza.

The word suddenly shows the fast pace and danger the soldier finds himself in at the beginning of the poem.

The word stopped shows the moment of contemplation the soldier has mid battle, and plunged, plunged shows the mind of the soldier dramatically shifting back to the danger of the battlefield after stopping in the middle of the poem.

I feel that these three words sum up the poem quite effectively: suddenly, stopped, plunged.

Let's check your understanding now of the poem.

How could you summarise the mood of the first stanza? Calm, energetic, or frantic? Pause the video and answer that question now.

I would summarise the mood of the first stanza with the word frantic.

In this section, the speaker is thrust into battle.

Therefore, I'd say that stanza as a frantic mood.

Remember, this poem depicts a soldier in the middle of a battle.

So we would definitely not call any point of this poem calm, even the second stanza in which the soldier pauses could still not be considered calm.

Because in that part, it really seems that the type of thoughts he's having are quite disturbing.

Let's move on to our next question to check your understanding of what's happening in the second stanza of the poem now.

What seems to happen in the second stanza of the poem? The soldier accidentally charges into a hare.

The soldier broods over his role at war.

The soldier's subconscious thoughts take over, or the soldier stumbles into an inflamed bush.

Pause the video and answer that question now.

In the second stanza, the soldier broods over his role at war.

He questions how he came to be in the position that he's in.

Also, we could say his subconscious thoughts take over.

These are thoughts that he could not allow to come to the surface during the height of the battle, and maybe you have never acknowledged.

But in this moment of tension, in this near death moment, they bubble to the surface and he starts questioning his role and purpose in this war.

In the third stanza, the soldier is implied to have tragically died, turned his back on previously held values or charged as an innocent person.

Pause the video and answer that question now.

In the third stanza, the soldier is implied to have turned his back on previously held values, and that's shown on line 20 and 21 of the poem.

I now want you to complete the table to track the events of each stanza and your emotional response to each stanza.

So on the left, I want you to give a 20-word summary of each stanza and on the right, I want you to give your emotional reaction to that stanza.

Pause video and complete the table now.

Let's go through some ideas.

My summary of the first stanza is sudden danger and my emotional reaction was that the violent and brutal imagery and fast pace at this stanza builds a lot of tension, causing me to feel an edge.

For stanza number two, my summary is stop and reflect, and that stanza causes me to reflect alongside the soldier about the ethics of war.

This stanza strikes me as really poignant.

I found myself feeling really sympathetic for the soldier as I read this stanza.

His moment of contemplation was really powerful to me.

As I said before, stanza two where the soldier stops and reflects is definitely my favourite stanza because of how it gives us a perspective about war that we may have never considered.

And stanza three.

Stanza three I've summarised as plunged back into reality.

In this stanza, I find the hare is a really striking image, which seems to evoke feelings of regret for the innocence that is trapped within the battlefield.

And the last four lines of the poem seem to me like a critique of propaganda.

If you read line 20 and 21 again, you'll notice that many of the things mentioned are potentially things that were also included on propaganda posters that encourage young men to sign up for the war.

On line 20 and 21, Hughes almost mocks these values and beliefs and motives for joining the war.

As he exposes that, in reality, war is very harrowing indeed and in fact the exact opposite to how it perhaps was depicted.

Well done on summarising the poem and making a note of your authentic reaction to each stanza.

I now want you to answer the following questions to dig deeper into the structure of the poem.

Here are your six questions.

What is interesting about the way the poem starts? How is stanza two different from stanza one? How does the poet succeed in changing the pace in stanza two? What do you think the significance of the hare is? How does the poem end? And reread line 20 and 21, what do you think the message of this poem is? Pause the video and answer those questions to dig deeper into the structure of the poem.

Off you go.

Let's take a look at some possible ideas.

Number one, the poem starts in medias res, and that means the poem starts in the middle of the action, meaning that the reader is launched into the battle with the soldier.

The fact he had just awoke before the action starts makes me wonder if this scene is a recurring memory, perhaps a manifestation of PTSD.

Number two, stanza one is action packed, whereas stanza two depicts a pause and a moment of contemplation for the soldier.

Number three, the pace in stanza two is much slower due to the caesura.

Now remember, caesura is a pause in the middle of a line.

Number four, the hare could be a representation of innocence.

Number five, the poem ends with the same harrowing description of the battle as there is at the beginning.

And line 20 and 21 make me feel that this poem is a critique of the propaganda that spread the message that dying for your country was honourable.

Well done on answering those questions.

I hope you're more confident with the structure of this poem now.

Let's look now at exploring the writer's intentions.

"Bayonet Charge" was written by Ted Hughes in 1957, after both World War I and World War II had taken place.

Hughes' father, William, fought in World War I and was one of the only 17 survivors of the Gallipoli campaign.

Thus, Hughes' father witnessed the massacre of thousands of his fellow men.

Ted Hughes witnessed the lasting impact that war had on his father and other men in his family.

Arguably, his father's war stories were so vivid that Hughes himself felt that he had witnessed the apocalyptic carnage of war.

I now want you to discuss, based on this contextual information, what do you think Hughes intention for his poetry was? Pause the video and discuss.

Through his father's stories, Hughes recognised that war was not portrayed in accordance with reality.

Thus, Hughes' intentions for his poetry may be to expose the true horrors of war and criticise the patriotic ideals that led men to sign up for war.

So in this sense, Hughes' intentions may not be that dissimilar to Wilfred Owen's.

True or false now.

Hughes wrote about his own experiences at war.

Pause the video and answer that question.

Your answer is false.

Hughes did not write about his own experiences at war.

I now want you to pause the video and justify your answer.

Off you go.

Hughes did not write about his own experiences at war.

Hughes' poetry is likely based on his father's traumatic experiences at war.

So Hughes is trying to shine a light on what his father and other men in his family went through.

Perhaps he's trying to validate their pain and raise awareness of it.

Let's check your understanding.

Hughes noticed the effects of war.

Did hugs notice the transient effects of war, the lasting effects of war, or the ephemeral effects of war? Pause the video and answer that question now.

Well done if you said Hughes noticed the lasting effects of war.

He noticed how his father was affected by the war in a way that never seemed to go away, potentially traumatised.

And that trauma was very much ingrained in his father and may have affected his childhood and upbringing too.

Remember, the answer can't be A or C because both transient and ephemeral mean lasting for a short amount of time.

And Hughes noticed the intergenerational effects of war.

Now for each statement, I want you to decide whether it is true or false, and I want you to identify a quotation in the poem that proves your decision.

Here are the statements.

In stanza one, Hughes presents the war as harrowing.

Hughes presents the war zone as unpredictable, and Hughes shows that war only harms people.

In stanza two, Hughes shows that soldiers retain their sense of purpose after enlisting.

And Hughes implies that men were dehumanised in war.

For stanza three, your statements are: Hughes exposes how war corrupts innocence, and Hughes wants to challenge the noble motives for warfare.

So those are your statements.

I want you to decide whether those are true or false, and I want you to provide a quotation that proves your decision.

Pause the video now and complete that task.

Off you go.

Let's go through some possible ideas.

Hughes presents the war as harrowing.

This is true.

The violent imagery and the intense physiological reaction of the soldier in the first stanza proves the harrowing nature of the war.

We see how the man is running fast and sweating.

The similarly on line eight is really telling in how harrowing the situation must be for the soldier.

Hughes shows that war only harms people.

This is false.

Hughes describes a hedge and later a hare in flames showing the damaging impacts of war on animals and nature, not merely humans.

Now, Hughes was very famous for his poetry about nature and his passion for nature may have influenced his inclusion of it in this poem.

He may have wanted to show how war damaged nature.

The effect of war on the environment and animals and wildlife is a topic that potentially we don't hear a lot about in war poems. So perhaps Hughes successfully brings to light a topic that the readers may not actually know that much about and may not ever have considered.

Hughes implies that men were dehumanised in war.

This can be seen as true.

The soldier contemplates why he's in the midst of this battle carrying a weapon, suggests that he was stripped of his independent thought and morality.

The fact the soldier questions what he's even doing in the middle of that battle suggests that perhaps he did not fully know what he was signing up for.

Perhaps he was stripped of the ability to question his involvement in this war and that points to his dehumanisation.

Lastly, Hughes wants to challenge the noble motives for warfare.

This seems to be true.

All of the noble motives for war are luxuries that a soldier cannot afford to carry when in the midst of harrowing danger.

So as we mentioned before, there was a lot of propaganda surrounding World War I and World War II that encouraged men to sign up for the war and depicted it as an honourable sacrifice and depicted anyone that signed up for it as brave.

However, all of those connotations that were depicted in propaganda are completely brushed to the side and dropped because in the face of danger, in the face of imminent death, one does not consider those things, one has only concern for their safety and welfare.

Let's go through what we've learned today then.

"Bayonet Charge" depicts a soldier in the midst of a harrowing battle.

"Bayonet Charge" exposes how war damages people, innocence, and the natural world.

Hughes' intention may be to criticise the patriotic ideals that led men to sign up for the war and expose the true horrors of war.

And Hughes may have based his poem on his father's stories of World War I, which was so vivid that Hughes felt he himself had witnessed the apocalyptic carnage.

Thank you for joining me in today's lesson.

I hope you now understand the poem "Bayonet Charge," and I hope you've enjoyed studying the poem "Bayonet Charge." I hope to see you for another lesson soon.