Poetry · Chapter
VII: Disincorporated explained
A short, satirical epitaph for Corporal Tanner, whose body parts are buried in different locations, mocking the sentimentality of patriotism and the absurdity of dismembered remains being honored separately.
What happens
A short, satirical epitaph for Corporal Tanner, whose body parts are buried in different locations, mocking the sentimentality of patriotism and the absurdity of dismembered remains being honored separately.
Themes in this chapter
Political Satire
The epitaph mocks patriotic reverence for a soldier's dismembered body, undercutting solemnity with a dismissive tone toward the stranger's tears.
Hypocrisy and Corruption
The poem highlights the hypocrisy of honoring a soldier's scattered remains while the burial ground itself is 'unconsecrate,' suggesting a hollow or corrupt form of remembrance.
Key passages
“Of Corporal Tanner the head and the trunk Are here in unconsecrate ground duly sunk. His legs in the South claim the patriot’s tear, But, stranger, you needn’t be blubbering here.”
Corporal Tanner's head and torso are buried in unhallowed ground, while his legs are in the South, supposedly deserving patriotic grief—but the speaker tells the visitor not to bother crying over it.
The poem uses a mock-epitaph form to satirize the fragmentation of a soldier's body and the misplaced sentiment of patriotism.