Compare and contrast Alfred, Lord Tennyson's, 'The charge of the Light Brigade' and Wilfred Owen's, 'Dulce et decorum est'.
From our study of war poetry I have selected two poems, Alfred, Lord Tennyson's, 'The charge of the Light Brigade' and Wilfred Owen's, 'Dulce et decorum est'. I will compare and contrast how these two poems and in particular the two poets, have differing attitudes towards the subject of war.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson was born in 1809 in Somersby, Lincolnshire. In 1842 Tennyson succumbed to deep depression brought on by financial worries which required him to receive medical treatment. He eventually married in 1850 to Emily Sellwood and accepted a peerage in 1883. On Tennyson's death in 1892 his remains were interred in Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey. Tennyson was requested to write a poem to celebrate a memorable action by a British cavalry unit in the Crimean war. However, Tennyson had never been in a theatre of conflict, let alone witness a battle involving British troops before. After reading a description in 'The Times' newspaper of the Battle of Balaclava in 1854, Tennyson penned 'The charge of the Light Brigade'.
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was born on March 18th, 1893 in Oswetry, England. In September, 1915 he enlisted in the British Army, eventually becoming an Officer with the Manchester Regiment. He served in France in the trenches during the First World War and was awarded the Military Cross for his actions during an attack in the first days of October, 1918. Unlike Tennyson, who was a civilian poet, Owen had first hand experience of the realities of warfare which subsequently cost him the ultimate price, his life. He was killed by enemy machine gun fire during an attack at the Sambre Canal near Ors on November 4th, 1918.
Both 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' and 'Dulce et Decorum Est' are about the conflict of war and the actions of the troops involved. However, that is where their similarity ends, as each portrays the experiences endured in vastly differing ways.
Tennyson's 'Light Brigade' opens in the middle of Battle, with the British light cavalry, having reacted to what historians tells us to be a blundering order, galloping into the valley towards the Russian guns. To great effect, Tennyson uses an arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables giving the effect of galloping horses'.
'Half a ...
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Both 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' and 'Dulce et Decorum Est' are about the conflict of war and the actions of the troops involved. However, that is where their similarity ends, as each portrays the experiences endured in vastly differing ways.
Tennyson's 'Light Brigade' opens in the middle of Battle, with the British light cavalry, having reacted to what historians tells us to be a blundering order, galloping into the valley towards the Russian guns. To great effect, Tennyson uses an arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables giving the effect of galloping horses'.
'Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
With the opening lines of the first of six stanzas, you can hear the rhythmic beat, as they ride in to 'the valley of Death' towards those murderous guns. One can almost see, hear and smell the turf, as it is cut up and flung into the air by those thunderous horses' hooves. With the use of alliteration, 'Stormed at with shot and shell,' he emphasizes the intensity of the bombardment being inflicted upon 'The Light Brigade' by the Russian guns. Tennyson further uses a vast array of other poetic devices throughout the poem, including Rhyming couplets, 'Their's not to make reply, / Their's not to reason why, / Their's but to do and die': imagery, which gives the reader a dramatic picture, 'Into the valley of Death'. Also the asking of rhetorical questions, 'Was there a man dismayed?' which all creates a feeling of exhilaration, glory and righteousness of this conflict. His use of a caesura in the fourth stanza, 'Charging an army, while / All the world wondered': causes the reader to pause momentarily and reflect upon the fact that this cavalry unit, though heavily out numbered, are still prepared to charge towards an army. 'The Light Brigade', is a celebration of the bravery of these men and their willingness to unquestionably follow an order even though it appears to mean certain death.
Tennyson wrote 'The Light Brigade' in the third person, unlike Owen who uses the first person. This is shown by Tennyson's use of the word 'Their's'. 'Their's not to make reply, / Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die': Which however causes the poem to become totally impersonal.
Owen's, 'Dulce et Decorum Est', on the other hand as been narrated in the first person, as shown in the second line of the first Stanza, '....We cursed through sludge,...'. Through out his poem Owen uses an abundance of poetic devices such as Alliteration, ' Knock-kneed', and 'Men marched asleep.' Giving and emphasizing to the reader, a picture of these men, struggling through this hell like scene, like a rag-tag army of tramps. 'Many had lost their boots, / But limped on, blood-shod....'. These soldiers continued to 'trudge' their way slowly, through the mud and decay towards their pre-arranged resting area, away from that bloody frontline. Owen's portrayal of the scene in the first Stanza, is one of a muffled quietness and of a certain amount of perceived safety, away from the immediate frontline and the dangers with which that held. The distant flares and shells give the effect of offering no immediate threat. As Owen states, 'Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.' However this scene is quickly shattered with the alarming cry of, 'Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!' and with this the 'old beggars under sacks', are unceremoniously and violently awoken from their fatigued induced sleep march. To be quickly followed by, 'An ecstasy of fumbling', which conveys a depiction of men, rushing, scrambling, attempting to keep control of their fear and panic, as they struggle to first find and then fit their gas masks. All Whilst the mist of death drifts silently amongst them, searching out its next pitiful victim. Owen had once been a patient at Craiglockhart Military Hospital suffering from shell-shock. Whilst there he suffered with ghastly reoccurring nightmares which he subsequently draws on in his poem, 'In all my dreams before my helpless sight...'And again with, '...If in some smothering dreams,..'. He finally concludes the poem by directly addressing the reader, 'My friend' and states, if you knew the realities of trench warfare like I do, you would not preach about the glory of ' Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori'.
One must wonder, was the poem 'Dulce et decorum' and especially its final few lines, aimed to counteract Tennyson's apparent celebration of 'The Charge of the Light Brigade. A charge which was all brought about by an error, a mistake, an unquestioned Order. A charge for the wrong guns.
Wilfred Owen once said, 'My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.'
