Tennyson uses metaphors, for example when he uses the phrase “the Valley of Death” a lot to tell you that the men went into a valley and they die. He does not use much imagery; he is direct and immediate. However he calls the battlefield the “Mouth of Hell” and the “Jaws of Death” which is scary because he gives death a mouth, and he personifies death which makes it feel alive and threatening.
Owen uses a lot of imagery to indicate the soldiers losing their grip on reality and hallucinating because of their hypothermic state. He personifies the wind and dawn. “Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey” He calls dawn a she, and an army which doesn’t make sense because armies are usually all men. Dawn is usually associated with new beginnings and hope, but for them dawn brings more cold, and like an army it kills more of the men. The ranks of grey are clouds full of snow, which is like bullets to them. In his awful state he is more afraid of the weather "sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence”, “with sidelong flowing flakes that flock” because he is not afraid of the battle because they are not in it yet. “Like a dull rumour of some other war”. He calls fire a “dark red jewel” because they are so cold that fire is precious to them, like jewels.
Tennyson’s poem is action packed and full of speed. He uses words like ‘charge’, ‘flash’, ‘boldly’, and ‘do and die’ to show action and drama. In contrast Owen uses slow, painful words like ‘ache’, rumbles’, ‘cringe’, ‘drag’, ‘pause’, ‘depression’, weary’, and ‘painful’ to show how depressing it is where they are. These words effect the overall atmosphere of the poems because the words in Exposure are slow and depressing so the poem sounds slow and sad. The words in Charge of the Light Brigade are fast and action packed so the poem is fast and full of action.
Both poems use repetition to emphasise important lines of the poems. For example Tennyson repeats the line “Rode the Six Hundred” at the end of every stanza to remind you of the loss of six hundred men. “Cannon to the right of them/left of them/ in front of them” is repeated to show they are being attacked and there is no way out. He says “Honour the Light Brigade” and here honour is an imperative verb, so you have to honour them.
Owen repeats the line “but nothing happens” at the end of every stanza because the soldiers are lying in their trenches waiting to be attacked. This is very tedious for them. That line goes completely against my idea of war because when I think of war I think of guns, fire, action and war, not monotony and tedium. Owen repeats the word “dying” a lot in the last few stanzas to show that they are dying slowly, the weather is killing them.
Charge of the Light Brigades rhythm is like the beat of horses running into battle, a very regular rhythm. The first two or three lines of every stanza rhyme. It is a very irregular rhyme scheme to reflect the chaos of the battle. The rhyme and the rhythm contrast. “Forward the Light Brigade! Was there a man dismayed?”
Owen uses an irregular rhyme scheme, he uses half rhymes for example, ‘silence and nonchalance’, ‘faces and fusses’, ‘snow and renew’ to show that the soldiers are not thinking straight and hallucinating. The rhythm is slow and sombre to reflect how they die. The rhythm in Charge of the Light Brigade is very fast to reflect the battle and Exposure is very slow because life for the soldiers is very slow.
Tennyson uses a lot of onomatopoeia, for example, shattered, thundered and stormed, which are very big, loud sounds. Owen uses words like rumbles, whisper and trickling, which are words to do, and with war and weather. Tennyson’s poem has more action rather than noise, where as Owen’s poem has very quiet noises to hint that the snow is muffling the snow.
In Charge of the Light Brigade there are six neat stanzas with eight lines. In Exposure there are eight stanzas. The last line is short and bleak “Is it that we are dying?” “We turn back to our dying” Charge of the Light Brigade is a very fast poem, full of vivid imagery. Exposure is a slow, sad poem full of very sad images and death. Charge of the Light Brigade presents war to be exciting and dramatic while Exposure shows war to be exciting and dramatic while Exposure shows war to be depressing and disgusting. However both Tennyson and Owen agree war is necessary because Tennyson talks about keeping their land and letting their children be free.
In conclusion the two poems are very different in the way that Charge of the Light Brigade is almost upbeat and dramatic, whereas Exposure is very sad and depressing. Tennyson presents war as quite a risky adventure, and Owen presents war as terrifying and horrible. I think that pretty much the only similarities are that both poems are about war.