Tennyson asks the reader a rhetorical question, ‘When can their glory fade?’ but it seems like he’s directing it at a wider audience, as if challenging them to disagree.
Tennyson’s poem is neatly structured, indicating his view of the battle, whereas Owen structures his differently and signifies the disorganisation of death. ‘Dulce’ has no specific structure, with two isolated lines in the middle. This also reflects the horror of the dying man who ‘plunges’ at Owen. It detaches these two men from the group, enabling the reader to understand that just this one man’s death had a dramatic effect on someone’s life. This differs to Tennyson who puts the men together as a united group, making their death seem righteous.
Owen uses the pronouns in a very structured way that shows the way he viewed the war. In the first stanza Owen writes from the perspective of a group of soldiers and shows what it was like. The next two stanzas use ‘I’ as the main pronoun, as it expresses Owen’s personal feelings; he saw a friend being killed by gas. The third stanza is just two solitary lines on the page. This reflects Owen’s isolation during the war, as though he was on his own.
Owen involves the reader in the last stanza, trying to communicate how he feels. He does this by using the pronoun ‘you.’ He is trying to persuade the reader to feel the same as him by calling them a ‘friend’. This stanza could have been aimed at Jessie Pope because he disagreed with her patriotic war poetry. Pope wrote in a similar manner to Tennyson, to honour soldiers’ death.
The rhythm that Tennyson uses is a dactylic rhythm that adds the effect of war drums to the poem. This technique sparks passion and excites the reader. It is especially helped by Tennyson’s comprehensive use of alliteration. ‘Half a league, half a league’. This implies that during the battle everything was extremely exhilarating and that feeling was worthy of their death.
Whereas, the iambic pentameter that Owen uses creates a drained atmosphere, as it sounds like everyday human speech, giving it a laborious tone, this is the opposite of ‘Charge’. This difficulty was shown in the poem by the lexis used. For instance, ‘trudge’ and ‘blood-shod.’ These are not romanticised at all, whereas in Tennyson’s poem, it could be argued that he exaggerated the lexis to create noble images of the army.
Tennyson employs exciting language in his poem such as ‘flashed’ and ‘wild charge’, which creates an impression of smart marching soldiers who weren’t afraid of dying for their country; if anything, they were spurred on by the thought of doing something for their King and country. There is marching in ‘Dulce’, but instead of the men striding along as proud war heroes, Owen says ‘men marched asleep’ which implies a slow, arduous death march.
Tennyson also uses onomatopoeia to persuade the reader of the excitement of the battle. ‘Bare,’ ‘air’ and ‘there’ from the fourth stanza could sound like the clashing of swords, which to Tennyson might have been the ultimate battle sound.
Owen uses a semantic field of illness in his poem, using words like ‘cancer’ and ‘incurable sores’ inferring there was corruption in their midst, possibly from the men back in England, who persuaded the poor, innocent men to join up and do their part, but who also lied to them about it being sweet and honourable. Image of innocent death and disease always create a horrible vision, which stresses that even though their lives hadn’t yet ended, being in the war was as good as being dead.
Tennyson uses the image: ‘valley of death’ which is a biblical allusion to ‘valley of the shadow of death,’ from the twenty-third psalm of the Bible. He repeats this line, to emphasise his point and to persuade the reader of the nobility of the English people. It is clear from this that Tennyson did not want the reader to question their faith; in fact he wanted to strengthen their faith in both England and God.
In comparison, Owen is clearly questioning his faith as he mentions that they ‘cursed through sludge.’ This is very ungodly, and suggests that all their hope had been abandoned. This might also be something to do with the biblical commandments. ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ When Owen was sent to kill the enemy, he would have felt as if he were betraying God.
The line that affects me most is the first one. 'Bent double, like old beggars under sacks.’ It shows how those men had been reduced to the status of a beggar, weighed down physically and mentally with the pain they experienced. The word ‘beggar’ creates a powerful image, as the beggars are usually the lowest of the low, begging for money to survive. These men were similar to them as they were begging for their life. Also, it says they are ‘under sacks,’ this could be like their protective shield against disease or death, or it could be their gas masks, which were their only hope of surviving gas attacks.
Owen uses bitter irony, for instance in the simile ‘like a Devil’s sick of sin.’ It seems impossible for something as bad as the devil to be sick of sin. Also the last two lines, 'The old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.’ shows how he completely disagrees with Tennyson’s view and maintains that war was not at all sweet or honourable. This phrase particularly affects me, as I perceive it as incredibly false and untrue.
Both poets were similarly respectful of the dead. Tennyson insists that we should ‘Honour the light brigade!’ and Owen makes us feel sorry for the deceased private by gruesomely describing his death. ‘Guttering, choking, drowning’ is intended to disturb the reader the way that Owen himself had been distressed.
‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ is a depressing poem which makes me think. The truth hits me when reading this poem and I start to feel guilty on behalf of my country for the pain and suffering the authoritative men in England Forced those soldiers to go through. I recognise that the soldiers were brave, like Tennyson emphasises, but unlike ‘Charge’ I do not see these men as noble. Nevertheless, I agree with Tennyson to an extent, as it is right that we should honour those men who died for their country. However, when he implies how England correctly sent them to their death, I disagree. In my opinion Wilfred Owen’s perspective was most accurate.
Owen wrote his poem in opposition to Jessie Pope and to dissuade people from going to war, which, with his use of graphic imagery and language, he manages to maintain throughout. The poem’s structure reflects his perspective on the war. His imagery shows his pain; and the poem in general reflects how terrible war was in his eyes. His overall message was how war cannot be sweet and honourable if men have to go through physical and mental pain just to win against the enemy, which ultimately is just murder of fellow man.
Whereas Tennyson is praising the men for their efforts, and being extremely patriotic in his writing. The battle-like structure helps the reader to feel like they were there, which also helps the reader to think that it was incredibly noble, brave and honourable to die in that way, for their country. Tennyson’s lack of war experience means that he could not employ much imagery.
Thus the poems were very different, not only in perspective (someone in the war to someone not), but in the message. Still, there are some similarities. They both use effective language to express their viewpoint. Both agreed that the men who went through the battle/war deserved honour for dying.
For me personally, the men who died in war were heroes. The good thing about these poems is that their deaths will always be respected and remembered.
Kelly Barber 10.1 English coursework 10ATA
