'The Charge Of The Light Brigade' and 'Come up from the Fields Father' are two war poems written in the mid 19th century.

A Comparison Of Two War Poems

‘The Charge Of The Light Brigade’ and ‘Come up from the Fields Father’ are two war poems written in the mid 19th century. They both involve the portrayal of death for their country. Although they both tell us about death in two entirely different ways.

In 1854, Mr Alfred Tennyson picked up ‘The Times’ newspaper and read a report written by W .H. Russell on the Crimean war. After reading the report, Alfred, wrote a very quick poem about the happenings. This poem was to become very famous and well known for centuries to come. In comparison, Walt Whitman, the author of ‘Come up from the Fields Father’ was a famous American author; he worked as a wound dresser in the American civil war, tending battle victims in primitive camp hospitals. Whitman writes his poem very imaginatively about the effects of war on a farming family. This gives the poems a very different feel and a change in style, as Whitman was a professional poetry author, while Tennyson was just an amateur!

This is a preview of the whole essay

A major difference in the flow of the poems is the pace of the poems. The pace of the poem can be dictate how the poem is read and changes the impact on the reader. ‘The Charge Of The Light Brigade’ is a very fast poem, it takes us threw a war scene in which severe death takes place, in contrast ‘Come up from the Fields Father’ is a slower pace as it is telling us of a life in the country side, which is never directly affected by war. The effects are more indirect as the son, heir to the farm, is killed in service for the war effort. In ‘Come up from the Fields Father’ we learn about just a single person who has fought and died in war, we are told nothing about his nobility and we see the effect of his death as being a terrible tragedy and great morning it causes. In ‘The Charge Of The Light Brigade’ we learn about the amount of nobility the 600 members of the light brigade. Many knew they would die on this charge, but they showed their true patriotism by not questioning their order and showing true pride to be part of their country’s war effort. Although many more people died in this poem, it shows a lot more excitement, with none of the depression, which took place in ‘Come up from the Fields Father’.

Tennyson shows a lot of rhythm and repetition in ‘The Charge Of The Light Brigade’ these occur frequently and are very catchy ‘Into the jaws of death’ … ‘cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in front of them’. We see different techniques used in ‘Come up from the Fields Father’ as it is a different pace and shows pathos and the change in the mood of the mother.

The title also tells us a lot about the poems, in ‘Come up from the Fields Father’ the title shows little relevance to the story as there is no father involved, this is the opposite to ‘The Charge Of The Light Brigade’ as the title tells us a lot about the story.

The poems have very different styles, this is mainly because of the authors view on the wars and the difference in style between English and American authors in the 19th century.

ßiΠy f0g@®ty