Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, IS IT?

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Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, IS IT?

Examine the various attitudes towards war displayed in your anthology.

In this piece of coursework I shall be comparing four different poems form the pre1914 period.  These poems shall be “the Charge of the Light Brigade”, “The man he killed”, “Come up form the fields father” and “After Blenhiem” and seeing the different attitudes towards the war.

The Charge of The Light Brigade

“The Charge of The Light Brigade”, is a very dramatic poem about he elite of an army during the Crimean War in 1896.  In the poem Tennyson celebrate the bravery of the six hundred British troops who went into a 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 dactylic feet (one space stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables) and this gives a sense of excitement of the galloping horse sin the cavalry charge and the rhythm of their feet beating on the ground:

“Half a league, half a league

Half a league onward” 

“The valley of death is used as a biblical view of he fate of the men.  The command their general gives “Forward, the Light Brigade, charge for the guns” is a very vivid.  The heroic command in stanza 1 which is repeated for effect in stanza 1, sweeps the reader along without time to question the futility of the gestures.  

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Even though the soldier knew that they would be killed they did not disobey.  Even they were suicidal, the orders of their commander were played because otherwise they would be shot as it’s shown in the poem.

‘Not though the soldiers knew,

Someone had blundered,

Theirs not to make,

Theirs not to reason why,

There’s but to do and die’

This extract shows that tin the army as a soldier you must follow every order given however ridiculous it is.  Tennyson also celebrates the ideal of unquestioning obedience of the soldiers in the face of ...

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