How do both Dulce et Decorum est by Wilfred Owen and The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Tennyson show the reality of war?

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How do both “Dulce et Decorum est” by Wilfred Owen and “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Tennyson show the reality of war?

Both of the poems focus on war, but they are both set at different points in time. “Dulce et Decorum est” is about the horrors of World War I, which went on from 1914- 1918. “The Charge of the Light Brigade” was based around actions taken in the Crimean War (1854- 1856). Both poems are narrates, they tell a story. Owens is about a squad of soldiers, who have been gassed; one man does not put his mask on in time and dies. The point of his poem is that that it is not “sweet, fitting or right to die for your country”, which is what “Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori” means. In Alfred Tennyson’s poem the “Light Brigade” are sent to by charge into battle, however, they are sent tot the wrong place by accident and they are sent to their deaths. Tennyson is glorifying their names and bravery. Even though they are both about war, the poems use a lot of different techniques. Owen uses a lot of gory imagery to show what life was like for the soldiers, Tennyson makes use of metaphors and similes, and he makes the war sound heroic while creating the impact of the tragedy at the end.

Both of the poems are structured differently, Tennyson has carefully separated his into six stanzas, this maybe because of the 600 men in the light brigade. He also uses repetition; this could be because he wants us to remember the phrases such as “Valley of Death”, and the horses’ galloping is another theme that runs through the poem, “half a league, half a league, Half a league onward”. He also makes use of a ridged structure of the poem to represent how disciplined they all were. He uses rhythm to enforce this idea, “Cannon to the left of them, Cannon to the right of them, Cannon in front of them,” he uses punctuation to do this. It begins with quite a fast rhythm when they are charging forward, and when they are fighting, however when there is no fighting the beat slows, “Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die”. This is a rhyming triplet, this may been because he was trying to enforce how regimented they were, he is trying to make it stick in our minds like the soldiers always remembered their orders. Tennyson uses metaphors to try and to try to get across how brutal the battle was, for example, “Into the Valley of Death”, he uses it to show how certain their fate was but they went through with it anyway. He also uses this in more than one stanza, as if they are echoing each other. This was much like how the chain of command echoed, when Lord Raglan passed the command down the hierarchy of command to Captain Nolan who gave the orders “‘Forward the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!’” (An actual quote from the battle) the final stanza has also been cut short, just like the lives of the soldiers were.

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Owen poem however is less regimental, and lightly structured, unlike Tennyson’s. This is because of the soldiers in Tennyson’s voluntarily went to war, as in World War II there was a conscription so you would be forced to go, this consequently meant that the men would not have been trained as well. However there is a rigid rhythm pattern, of A B A B. This was more for the flow of the poem that helps the events go ahead smoothly, like a story. The verses are also different lengths, and are looser, unlike Tennyson’s. This may have been because that’s ...

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