Explore the attitudes to war in Alfred Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" and Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum est"

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Explore the attitudes to war in Alfred Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade”

and Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum est”

Through this essay I intend to look at the different attitudes to war, and how they have changed through time. Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote “Charge of the Light Brigade” during the Crimean War; “Dulce et Decorum est”, however, was written during the Great War, World War I. The Crimean War was a time when military blunder occurred frequently, and that is what this poem is about. World War I was a revolutionary new type of warfare and the horrors that occurred were unimaginable. These two poets have looked at the warfare in very different ways; partly due to the warfare itself, and partly to do with what they actually knew. Tennyson wrote “Charge of the Light Brigade” after reading a report in the newspapers; Wilfred Owen, however, was a serving officer at the front.

        “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is about an attack on enemy fortifications through a valley. The attack was a failure, due simply to the incompetence of the officers in charge and the order they gave. The ‘Light Brigade’ was a brigade solely of soldiers on horseback with no armoury except their sabres and small guns. In the battle the “600” men rode into a valley against cannon fire from both sides and the end of the valley; and then after reaching the end had to turn back and retrace the exact route they had just taken due to the orders they were given. The attack was ridiculous and caused a great loss of life in the attacking forces. Tennyson wrote the poem after reading a report of the battle, which was featured in The Times on 14 November 1854. The report by W. H. Russell gave the impression that the battle was very grand and the men were very noble. This made Tennyson want to pay his respects to the men and so through his poem he did so.

        Tennyson’s attitude to war was very much the overall view at the time; that war was grand and glorious, that it was full of brilliance and noblility; not at all realistic, as we now know.  In the poem it is a very cleansed view that is portrayed to us about the events and a very euphemistic style is used. From the first stanza onwards, nothing is written in a personal way. No single men are ever referred to, it is always the six hundred; it is not the soldiers of Cossack and Russian, it is simply a machine; the gunners aren’t referred to – they are just guns, not people. This prevents us from focussing on the slaughter that is the battle as it allows us to look away from the deaths that occurred.

        Rhythm is often a key thing to a poem. This poem is no exception. The first stanza has a very simple, steady rhythm, which mirrors the rhythm of the riders. Lines thirteen to fifteen, in the second stanza, are about discipline. The rhythm of the lines represent this as they are very strict and steady.

        Tennyson uses imagery very effectively throughout the poem. The valley that the Light Brigade are entering is described as though it is a huge beast; “the jaws of Death”, “the mouth of hell” – the use of personification here dramatises the whole scene.

        The great use of onomatopoeic words such as “cannon” and “volly’d” add to the image of the battle as it becomes easier for us to visualise the events unfolding. In the second stanza the heroism and courage of the men is highlighted through showing us the discipline of the men – they do not question the order as

        “Their’s not to make reply,

          Their’s not to reason why, -”.

        The discipline of the men is shown to us very effectively here as we see that although the men are going into certain death, they still follow the orders exactly as they are given.

        The image at the end of the attack, of the ‘success’ of the battle is very strange. The men who took part all gained the Balaklava Clasp; an award that is unique, as it is the only clasp ever awarded by the British government for what is technically a defeat. This fact is portrayed in how Tennyson shows a very cleansed view of events – he doesn’t speak of the huge numbers of deaths, or the “blunder” that was the order given, he simply praises the men for their courage; which is much what the government did in awarding the Balaklava Clasp.

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        What Tennyson tells us about the men that fought is very positive. In the fifth stanza, the retreat from the attack, they are described as heroes. One key point to the view we perceive of the men, is the fact that the use of euphemism makes the whole scene far ‘nicer’and further from the reality of war:        

        The use of the word “fell” instead of ‘killed’ or ‘slaughtered’ adds to the heroism of the men; they don’t die, they just fall from the battle. This is a key to Tennyson’s attitude to war, as he sees everything in a very ...

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