Although Tennyson didn’t fight in his selected war, Owen did. This gives him all the right and detail he needs to right such a graphic poem of fatality, uselessness and pain. He sent this poem to his mother to describe the environment he was fighting in, but he shortly died after this in the war he wrote about.
The overall mood of the poems greatly influences the language and words they can use and therefore is very important.
Owen’s style for this poem is very dark and detailed, as he has seen it with his own eyes. The area he was in, also due to him writing this to his mother while at war, may have influenced him. It isn’t as stereotypical as Tennyson’s, but goes for the truth rather than the image of the war being heroic.
Tennyson’s poem, as w have said before, is the stereotypical type of poem that are the normal poem you see written in history books for us to read so that we envy the people in the war and which we were as heroic and brave as them. We know that many people died in the Crimean War but Tennyson glorifies it, but this may be a sarcastic view of war to show the idiotic-ness of how we want to think that war is heroic.
Both poets use metaphorical imagery to convey atmosphere to the reader, you can see this by studying the language and technique used in the words and phrases that emphasis the mood.
There are many techniques that a poet can use when writing poetry and two major ones are sound and meaning, which both of the poets we are looking at use well. Owen works on meaning rather than sound, which Tennyson does the opposing of this. Tennyson has been criticised that he uses more sound that meaning to make his poems great. This shows in the lack of detail of the war and the death of 300 people.
All through Tennyson’s poem a rhythm of charging or galloping is present, it is needed to add to the heroism and bravery that he puts across. The syllable structure is one of a line stressed then two unstressed, giving us an image of the men charging forward all through the poem. Owen doesn’t really adopt this type of poetry but he still adds sound through using onomatopoeia, as does Tennyson.
Owen rarely uses the sound of words due to him concentrating on the dramatic side of poems where they use meaning, contrary to this, Tennyson uses the sound to create that same drama.
In Owen’s poem the main part where he uses onomatopoeia is when he uses the powerful underwater metaphor, when the man is succumbing to poison gas, which is compared to drowning. “Gargling on froth corrupted lungs”. You can nearly hear someone couching and choking in water, gasping for air.
Tennyson uses onomatopoeia to give us the sound of a “thud” by using words like: “thunder’d”, “blunder’d”, “wondered”, and “hundred”. He isn’t focusing on the meaning, which we have just covered, but is concerned of the sound that is projected. These noises give us the image of the horses charging to death once again which Tennyson’s poem is heavily dependent on; also the heroism is represented on these sounds. The words are chopped to create a sense of speed and a burst of charging.
We get the impression that Owen fought in the war where as Tennyson did not. We see the evidence for this in the way the poems are written. Owen uses vivid and detailed metaphors and similes “through a green sea”, but Tennyson has more of an on-lookers view of the war and uses trite descriptive text “valley of death.” Owen’s is realistic and tells us what it looked and effect it had, but Tennyson is more of the clichéd image given to us of war. Owen also uses words and phrases that create an impression of what he is describing, but Tennyson’s has an outsider’s view of war and seems to be more factual as if it had been read from a book. Owen gives no real opinion of war just the truth, which implies the disgust he has of it, where as Tennyson’s opinion is represent the war as honourable and the maker of heroes. Owen uses personal pronouns “He plunges at me”, but this repeated image of Tennyson being an outsider shows when he uses text that is very far from the event “Flash’d all their sabres bare.” Not only does Owen use personal text, but also he seems to be affected by the horrific events of the war that he has seen and can’t let them go “In all my dreams.”
Alfred Tennyson was born at Somersby, Lincolnshire, the third son George Tennyson. He was educated partly by his father, then at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he joined the and met up with . In 1829 he won the chancellor’s medal for English verse with “Timbuctoo”, the first poem in blank verse to win. Poems by Two Brothers (1827) contains some early work that he chose not to reprint even in his Juvenilia, as well as poems by his brothers Charles and Frederick. Poems Chiefly Lyrical was reviewed by and John Wilson. In 1832 he travelled with Hallam on the Continent, visiting among other places Cauteret, a big inspiration for Tennyson. Hallam died abroad in 1833, and in that year Tennyson began , which he writes of his grieving for his friend. He became engaged to Emily Sellwood, however, he was not married until 1850; poverty caused by the disinheritance of the Somersby Tennysons in favour of his ambitious uncle Charles Tennyson was the reason for the delay, but R. B. Martin said that Alfred feared the “black blood” of the Tennysons, an unstable family, and suspected that he suffered from epilepsy. George Tennyson died in 1831. In December 1832 he published a further volume of Poems (dated 1833). From 1845 until his death he received a civil list pension of £200. In 1847 he published and in 1850 In Memoriam, and later that year he was appointed poet laureate in succession to . He wrote his “Ode” due to the death of in 1852 and “The Charge of the Light Brigade” in 1854, having at this time settled in Farringford on the Isle of Wight. Tennyson’s fame was by now firmly established, and Maud, and other Poems and the first four (1859) sold extremely well. Among the many friends and admirers who visited Farringford were , who had helped him financially in early years, , Patmore, Clough, , and . Prince Albert called in 1856, but despite the high respect with which she regarded him, Queen Victoria never visited him, preferring to summon him to Osborne or Windsor. Enoch Arden appeared in 1864, The Holy Grail and Other Poems in 1869 (dated 1870), “The Last Tournament” in the in 1871, and Gareth and Lynette in 1872. Tennyson began building his second residence, Aldworth, near Haslemere in Surrey, in 1868. His dramas and Harold were published in 1875 and 1876, and The Falcon, , and in 1884. He published Tiresias, and Other Poems in 1885. He was buried in Westminster Abbey and Hallam was born shortly after
Wilfred was the son of a railway worker, who was born in Plas Wilmot on the 18th march 1893. He went to Birkenhead Institute and at Shrewsbury Technical School and worked as a pupil-teacher at Wyle Cop School while preparing himself for his matriculation exam for the University of London. He failed to get a scholarship he found a job as an English teacher in the Berlitz School. In 1915 he enlisted in the Artists’ rifles and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, he joined the Manchester Regiment in France on January 1917. Here is where he started to write poems on his war experiences. Shortly he had an accident which concussed him in the summer due to a shell landing two yards away, He was diagnosed as suffering from shell-shock. While recovering at Craiglockhart War Hospital he met the poet Siegfried Sassoon. Owen showed Sassoon his poetry who advised and encouraged him. So also did another writer at the hospital, Robert Graves. Sassoon suggested that Owen should write in a more direct, colloquial style. Over the next few months Owen wrote a series of poems, including Anthem for Doomed Youth, Disabled, Dulce et Decorum Est and Strange Meeting. In August 1918 Owen was declared fit to return to the Western Front. He fought at Beaurevoir- Fonsomme, where he was awarded the Military Cross. Wilfred Owen was killed by machine-gun fire while leading his men across the Sambre Canal on 4th November 1918. A week later the Armistice was signed. Only five of Owen's poems were published while he was alive. After Owen's death his friend, Siegfried Sassoon, arranged for the publication of his Collected Poems (1920).
