Comparing “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen.

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Comparing “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen.

Although both “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “The Charge of the Light Brigade are about battle

and the death of soldiers, they portray the experience of war in very different ways.  Tennyson’s

poem celebrates the glory of war, despite the fact that, because of an error of judgment

“someone had blundered,” six hundred soldiers were sent to their death. Owen’s poem, on the

other hand might almost have been written as a challenge to Tennyson’s rousing sentiments. He

presents the horror of senseless death in the trenches. He was a civilian poet, as opposed to a

soldier poet like Owen. His poem “Light Brigade”  increased the morale of the British soldiers

fighting in the Crimean War and of the people at home, but Tennyson had not been an

eyewitness to the battle he describes. Wilfred Owen wrote “Dulce et Decorum Est” towards the

end of the First World War. Owen was against the propaganda and lies that were being told at

the time. He had first-hand experience of war and wanted to let the people at home know the

truth. Many patriotic poems were being written at the time, but Owen knew they lied.

Tennyson’s poem is a celebration of the bravery of the six hundred British troops who went into

battle against all odds, even though they knew that they would be killed. The poem starts in the

middle of the action. “Light Brigade” is written in the kind of rhythm which gives a sense of

excitement of the galloping horses in the cavalry charge. “Half a league, half a league, half a

league onward.” Tennyson also creates a vivid impression of the bravery of the soldiers with

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many words of action “Flash’d all their sabres bare,” “Flash’d as they turn’d in air,” “Sabring

the gunners there” He uses noble sounding metaphors like “the valley of Death,” and “the mouth

of Hell” to describe the fate that awaits these men. He doesn’t convey the gory reality of the

battle, instead using personification. Tennyson creates a feeling of exhilaration with his use of

language devices, such as repetition “Cannon to the right of them, Cannon to the left of them,

Cannon in front of them.” The repetition of this phrase makes the reader feel ...

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