Six Young Men
E540842
"Six Young Men" is a poem by Ted Hughes that reflects on a wartime photograph of six friends, meditating on memory, mortality, and the devastation of war.
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | poem ⓘ |
| addresses | readers directly through a reflective voice ⓘ |
| author | Ted Hughes NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| centralImage | old photograph of six young men before going to war ⓘ |
| concerns |
the erasure of individual stories by history
ⓘ
the impact of war on ordinary lives ⓘ |
| contrasts | youthful vitality with later violent deaths ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| focusesOn |
contrast between youth in the photograph and their later deaths
ⓘ
the persistence of photographic images versus human mortality ⓘ |
| form | free verse ⓘ |
| genre |
lyric poem
ⓘ
war poem ⓘ |
| hasSettingReference | First World War era NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryDevice |
contrast
ⓘ
enjambment ⓘ imagery ⓘ irony ⓘ symbolism ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | post-war British poetry ⓘ |
| literaryPeriod | 20th-century literature ⓘ |
| meditatesOn |
how photographs freeze a moment in time
ⓘ
the gap between past and present ⓘ the inevitability of death ⓘ |
| mode | reflective ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | first-person speaker ⓘ |
| oftenAnthologizedIn | collections of Ted Hughes’s poetry ⓘ |
| oftenStudiedIn | A-level English Literature syllabuses ⓘ |
| portrays | the young men as full of life before the war ⓘ |
| questions |
how history records individual lives
ⓘ
the meaning of remembrance ⓘ |
| relatedThemeTo | Wilfred Owen war poems ⓘ |
| relatedWorkByAuthor |
Crow
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Remains of Elmet NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| subject | a wartime photograph of six friends ⓘ |
| theme |
friendship
ⓘ
loss ⓘ memory ⓘ mortality ⓘ the devastation of war ⓘ time ⓘ war ⓘ |
| tone |
elegiac
ⓘ
meditative ⓘ somber ⓘ |
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.