A Comparison of "The Charge of the light brigade" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, "The Destruction of Sennacherib" by Lord Byron, The Drum by Lord John Scott.

The fourth verse describes how The Light Brigade had swords against guns and how they brandished their swords in the air and how even amazingly some men had some success. He also uses repetition with the word "Flashed". This is at the start to the verse which engages you straight away.

"Flashed all their sabres bare,

Flashed as they turned in the air

Sabring the gunners there,"

In this verse it also becomes clear what opinion Tennyson has. He believes their bravery had some success, although Tennyson adopts a biased, patriotic attitude. His sympathies lie with the soldiers.

"Right through the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reeled from the sabre-stroke"

There is a use of repetition at the end, like in the whole of the poem where the poet writes "Rode the six hundred" or "Not the six hundred" which makes the poem run smoothly. At the end of this verse He writes

"...but not,

Not the six hundred."

He repeats "not" for emphasis that many had died. In the sixth verse Tennyson tells us to "honour" The Light Brigade, in fact he tells us this twice, repeating the word "Honour" which is effective. It is very clever the way Tennyson has repeated the word "hundred" at the end of every verse but rhyming it with a different word each time. The poet uses a question "When can their glory fade?" which is effective because it tells us what an amazing thing these men did and that no one will forget it.

In the same way "The Destruction of Sennacherib" was written by Lord Byron to describe a biblical battle. Like Tennyson's poem Byron makes use of very emotive images to give a sense of the power of the Assyrian army. The poem has a regular rhyme scheme of AABB. It combines ideas of death and war in the name of religion and the greatness of God. The poem starts with a simile:

"The Assyrian came down like a wolf on a fold"

And another simile used two lines down from this:

"And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea"

Byron seems to always take his similes from nature, the most effective being the last of the poem:

"And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!"

He uses very forceful and dramatic language for example:

"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast"

This is also an example of personification and irony - death being brought by an angel. It is similar to the personification in "The Charge of the Light Brigade" where the poet writes "The jaws of death".

Byron uses language such as "deadly" and "chill" which creates an image of death and sounds unsettling.

A lot of the imagery used in the poem is natural, for instance talking about the forests, summer and the green leaves contrasted to the soldiers. This is compared with the seasons and growth of summer compared with withering and death of autumn.

"Like leaves of the forest when summer is green; ...

Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown."

This is an example of death in the poem - bodies of soldiers strewn like the dead autumn leaves.

In the fourth verse language such as "gasping" and "cold" is used which shows the exhaustion and horrible conditions the soldiers was in just before they died. It emphasises the war like conditions and makes it easier for the reader to picture the death and destruction.

We are told of the paraphernalia of the battle but no fanfare now because all the men have been killed:

"And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,

The lances uplifted, the trumpet unblown."

Again there is more natural imagery but this time combined with man "With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;"

We are told of the soldiers wailing in grief destroyed presumable by the victors. This gives the reader an even more vivid description of the shear chaos of the battle and helps the reader feel the emotion the soldiers feel by using words such as "wailing", an onomatopoeic word helping the reader heard the cries of grief:

"And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,

And the idols are broken in the temple of Baal;"

The poem ends with a statement saying anyone who didn't die in the battle has "melted" under the "glance" of God. This emphasises that the battle was religious and in the name of God and to die would have been an honour.

"And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!"

The structure of the poem is made of six four line stanzas. The rhythm and rhyme are also regular with each verse being made up of two rhyming couplets. This makes a great impact when the poem is read aloud.

When looking at the poem "The Drum", we see that is was written at about the same time as "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and "The Destruction of Sennacherib" unlike the two other poems though it is quite obviously antiwar. It is a very personal poem, we know this because it starts with the words "I hate".

The rhythm of the poem is similar to that of a drum beat. This is deliberate of the poet and works very well. Scott has gained this by repetition, mimicking the repetitive sounds of the drum beat showing the sound can not be ignored and using alliteration:

"I hate that drum's discordant sound,

Parading round, and round, and round"

We are also told of the drums "discordant" sound which emphasises that he finds the sound awkward.

We are told of the purpose of the drum is to recruit the young, naïve and the gullible:

"To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields,

And lures from cities and from fields,"

The imagery and vocabulary here is the first verse is largely positive, for instance "glittering" and "charms" and "pleasure" but this is contradictory to the images and almost oxymoron's to "tawdry lace" and "glittering arms"

"And when Ambition's voice commands,

To march, and fight, and fall in foreign lands."

The word "Ambition" is personified here to be the commanding voice of the general which will ultimately lead to their deaths.

In the second verse we are given an obvious incite to the poets view of war. We are told details of the reality of war with violent imagery which as "ravages"; "burning"; "ruined"; "Mangled"; "dying" etc.

We are told that:

"All that misery's hand bestows,

To fill the catalogue of human woes."

Here the poet says that Ambition (stanza 1) has now become misery personified. The end result can only be "human woes" and that war only brings death.

This poem was very ahead of it's time. It was very normal then to see war as a great and heroic thing. John Scott being a Quaker was against war as most Quakers are. This is probably a reason for his very anti-war attitude.

The poem is made up of two stanzas with eight lines in each. There is a regular rhyme scheme with rhyming couplets. The vocabulary and rhythm is used to mirror the sound of the drum. The second stanza however is more upsetting. The personification of "ambitions voice" is changed in the second stanza to "misery's hand".

All three poems are about war, which is one obvious similarity which makes all three poems easy to compare.

A difference between the three poems is that Tennyson and Byron are writing a poem about a war which actually happened whereas Scott is writing about war in general. When regarding "The Destruction of Sennacherib" and "The charge of the Light Brigade", Tennyson writes about the war when he was alive and a witness whereas Byron was not alive in biblical times when the destruction of Sennacherib took place.

Another difference is in "The Drum", the poet seems to be constantly concentration of the fact that these men will die and that war is wasteful whereas in "The Destruction of Sennacherib" and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" it is seen as Heroic. (Although there is a slight doubt that "The Charge of the Light Brigade" might be subtly antiwar).

I feel the most effective is "The Charge of the Light Brigade" which is hat makes it my favourite. I think when read aloud the rhyme scheme and repetition of the poem make it most effective and interesting and emphasises the greatness of the men who lost their lives due to a mistake the generals made.

Melissa Parvis 5W