Explore the portrayal of war in Lord Byron's 'The Destruction of Sennacherib', Alfred Tennyson's 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' and Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce Et Decorum Est.'

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Explore the portrayal of war in Lord Byron’s ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’, Alfred Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ and Wilfred Owen’s ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est.’

The three poems discuss aspects of war however each shows a different portrayals of war as the poets are writing in different time periods. Lord Byron structured his poem using secondary evidence which was from the bible; he made war out to e romantic idyllic and wonderful. He also celebrates the power and strength of God. However Wilfred Owen’s outlook on war came from his experiences, he told it at the worst case scenario and sent out messages in his poems. Tennyson based his poem on a newspaper article about the Crimean War; it is a Pre 1914 poem like Lord Byron’s.

       

   Lord Byron wrote The Destruction of Sennacherib. His sources are secondary as they came from the bible (2nd book of Chronicles Chapter 32). The poem is based on the power of God. King Sennacherib of Assyria believed he could destroy Judea and King Hezekiah. Sennacherib told Jerusalem (a city in Judea) that there faithfulness to one God would not save them. In their hour of need they prayed to their God, and he sent an angle that killed Sennacherib and his army.

    The first verse describes Sennacherib’s army with a powerful simile ‘like wolf on the fold’ this defines the army as the ‘wolf’: strong and dominant, choosing parts of the ‘fold’ (sheep) which symbolise the cities in Judea picking them off one by one. He also uses the colours ‘purple and gold’ in his description of the army, these are bold confident strong colours symbolising victory. There is also the use so alliteration ‘and the sheen of there spears was like stars on the sea’ these emphasise the strength of the army as you tend to say these words stronger.      

    The second verse begins with the army still strong and dominant. ‘Summer is green’ is a happy metaphor showing the emotions of the army that they re confident that they can defeat Jerusalem. However ‘autumn hath blown’ is another metaphor in the second half of the verse which contrasts as this is a dull and gloomy metaphor just like the season it also symbolises no hope as the seasons next change for the worst into winter, ‘ withered and strewn’ also el0aborates on the idea of failure. Repetition features in this verse twice ‘like the leaves of the forest when’ and ‘that host’ these build up pace and increase emphasis.

   Verse three, four, five and six are all structured like a list. This is created by the repartition of ‘and’ which signifies another thing to come to show the extent of the destruction to the army. This technique builds up pace however I think it has been over used.

    The last line of the poem starts with a simile ‘hath melted like snow’ this is referring to Sennacherib’s army ‘ in the glance of the lord’ shows his power and that no man should think he is better than God, this being the last line leaves the message in your mind to remember.    

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Lord Byron’s view off war is that good always combats bad. He celebrates the power of god however as he got his information from the bible he maybe biased towards god’s strength.

Wilfred Owens wrote his poem ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ during the First World War. He told of the horrors he saw and tried to put his sightings across in his poems to show war was not glorious. He put his point across by being ironic and sarcastic the title starts this as it translates to ‘It is sweet and honourable to die for your country’ his ...

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