Overall this poem portrays war as a place to seek fame, glory and honour, a way to be remembered, to make your mark on the world.
Lord Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ portrays war in a much different way to Shakespeare. Historically the poem is about a disastrous attack made by the British Light Brigade of Cavalry against entrenched artillery at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean war, the cavalry lost more than a third of it’s men due to a misunderstood order issued high in the chain of command. This event is a true account of the horrors of war. The poem is of a much different style to that of Shakespeare preferring to use short structured verses rather one long stanza as well as a regular rhyming pattern and different rhythm patterns; although the whole poem has a general marching, militaristic rhythm. However on the surface it does seem to be glorifying war with the heroic early style, but there is a distinct sense of irony, underlying the poem as well as one of the futility with which they are fighting. Within the poem there is distinct contrast within the vocabulary used, some is glorious such as “Boldly” and “Plunged” and other positive words, however there is, at the same time, much negative and morbid language is also present such as the obvious “Death”, “Hell”, “Shatter’d” and “broke” this give both the good and bad sides to the reader. The poem emphasises several key words and phrases by way of repetition, such as “Rode the six hundred”, “cannon” and “Forward the Light Brigade”. The repetition of these key phrases really shows the main themes the poet wants the reader to realise: “cannon” gives a feeling of danger and that they are utterly surrounded, “Forward the Light Brigade”, a reminder of that fateful order, and “Rode the six hundred” puts emphasis on the statistic of there being many, and that each one is counted, but, at the same time just a rounded statistic; humanising and dehumanising them. The poem makes a fair use of emotive language such as “shot and shell”, synonymously linked with war. The poem describes the valley as “the Valley of Death” which has strong Biblical references, later in the poem the horsemen are described as going “Into the jaws of Death,/ Into the mouth of Hell”, again this is description rooted in Religion and ‘death’ is capitalised suggesting that it was as though it was the personification of death whose jaws they were riding into, making for a truly horrific depiction of the situation. The onomatopoeia contained within this poem really assists the reader in visualising the event and adds a sense of urgency and realism with “thunder’d” and “Shatter’d”. “All the world wonder’d:” gives the impression that no-one but the soldiers knew of what was happening and would never truly be told. “Not the six hundred.” is a short line to shock the reader with the truth.
Verse 5 is a mirror of Verse 3, with the alliteration of “horse and hero” to provide emphasis to it. “Came through the jaws of Death,” breaks up the rhyme and emphasises the loss, the death. “When can their glory fade?” challenges the reader, with rhetoric, as to if the charge will be allowed to be forgotten, as well as providing a small positive point in a poem so full of despair, destruction and morbid tones.
Overall ‘The Charge Of the Light Brigade’ shows war to be horrific and unjust, a terrible thing which, however, must be remembered, if only as a warning.
‘The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna’ takes on a much more sombre and mournful look at the results of war, the first verse being very morbid and gloomy. The Battle of La Coruña was a battle of the which took place on , , though the Brittish were in retreat ans outnumbered, John Moores tactics led to a positive retreat losing only 900 men, be it with his own death. The poem depicts how the 9th Foot buried him after the battle on the city ramparts. The poem portrays a sad look at the very simple burial of a great man. The light imagery of the poem is interesting as it is only mentioned twice depicting first the “struggling moonbeam’s misty light,” and “the lantern dimly burning” this is interesting because the light, the hope, was fading after the death of their great leader. The first verse uses a lot of negative language “funeral”, “farewell” and “grave” this gives a resounding impression of the sadness of the poem and begins the poem’s morbid portrayal of war. The funeral is shown to be rushed and makeshift, it is implied that war heros should have a large funeral to honour them, but this is small and secret. No coffin is truly good enough for him yet he can have no coffin, yet he still looks impressive and worthy of being a ‘hero’, and yet is treated as an ordinary soldier, but does not in actual fact require the fancy trappings of other heroes, and lies quite restfully; these contrasting images that are shown in the poem really emphasise the greatness of the man and the incredibly loss of losing him. The funeral is very humble, “gazed” shows that they were thinking, allowing their minds to ponder their hero. The “prayers we said” shows they were trying to make it as much of a true funeral as possible. The rhymes are weak and fading to represent death. When the soldiers “bitterly thought of the morrow” they are considering the futility of them fighting, and the fact that if such a great hero and leader may be slain in battle then it could be them with ease. “We hollowed his narrow bed,/And smoothed down his lonely pillow” is depicting his grave as a bed. “hollowed” is a negative and morose word, which was chosen in place of ‘dug’; a much more general term. “Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone…” and verse 6 shows how his enemy will speak ill of him, but he, being so noble, and of such courage will be able to ignore it, content as he is left in peace where his own people left him. The 7th verse starts; “half our heavy task”, alliteration, lethargic and deathly which adds to the overall negative effect. The verse gives the impression of no-one wanting to fight, and of the way combat trudges on. The poem ends emphatically with a slow and meaningful burial; “Slowly and sadly we laid him down” The poem shows that nothing marked the spot, and despite the negative language and the sadness involved, it indicates that he is still a great man and should therefore be remembered and honoured.
Overall this poem portrays war as sad and meaningless; it views it as an unnecessary loss of life, in this instant, of a great man. The piece is clearly anti-war focussing purely on the negatives and sadness associated with death in war.
‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ is an interesting and strange poem as it does not really illustrate any war, but rather Biblical destruction. It is part of a biblical account of the invasion of the Syrians and illustrates their destruction at the hands of God, in fact “The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.”. The poem contains a very strong ‘AABB’ rhyme scheme and utilises the anapaestic rhythm which combined give the overall effect of the events in the poem seeming unstoppable and inevitable. Byron uses several powerful similes within the poem which assist in the image of what has occurred; “like the wolf on the fold,” describes an army as a predator homing in on innocent prey, “sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea” showing the enormity of the enemy forces, “Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown”. The poem’s anapaestic rhythm also serves to amplify the meaning of the piece; it also has alliteration and a galloping rhythm. The deaths described are peaceful but profound within this divine intervention eyes suddenly dead, hearts suddenly stops, the poem focuses on death on a personal level by focusing on a few features of death, but insinuating that the same applies to thousands. It is very negative, using such words as “deadly”, “chill”, “broke”, “gasping” and “blast”. The poem especially emphasises the power of God, the destruction is ultimate and complete everything is killed and “he breathed on the face of the foe as he pass’d” portrays the power as only a breath gave all the destruction. The end of the poem talks of the grief of the grief of the the slain’s widow’s “And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,”, also the poem says that “the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;” trying to depict the Hebrew God as more powerful than their supposed deities.The “dew” mentioned would normally signal the start of a day, the start of a battle, but with contrast to normality this battle never began, and this is a key factor; this poem is not about a war. Overall, this poem doesn’t really portray war as much as just mere destruction, it shows however war as a bad thing, that causes only grief and solves no problems, also it suggests that the only real power of the world is God.
Lord Byron’s ‘The Eve of Waterloo’ is, of course, depicting the Battle of Waterloo. The Battle of Waterloo was fought on , , and was 's last battle.Against the rest of commanded by the 's , and 's . This poem, instead of focussing on one aspect of war as the others do, it instead described the whole process. The piece begins with a descriction of the statly ball which preseeded the Battle, (also mentioned in Thackeray’s Book ‘Vanity Fair’). However the last line of the first stanza shows a state of urgency using the emotive; “hush” and “hark” and also the “knell” could well be a ‘death knell’ so the happy atmosphere, it is hinted, will not last. In the second stanza the poem switches from the positive atmosphere of a party to the dark, negatives of the soldiers waiting for war, the fragmented sentences build up the an agitated atmosphere and the tri-colon of “nearer, clearer, deadlier” gives a heavy sound which contributes to the entire feel of negativity. Stanza three focuses on one person, to give a personal feel to the battle, it contains the first blood imagery, bloody bier” and “blood alone could quell.” in the piece as well as the first death of “Sate Brunswick’s fated chieftain”. The 4th stanza focuses on the grief of those saying farewell to those heading to war with “choking sighs”, however, in contrast it does show some positive words.
Stanza five contains a lot of action, with ‘and’ being used a lot to help show that a lot is happening at the same time, with the rhythm carrying everything onward, the drama and urgency of the verse is amplified by “The foe! they come! they come” by both the short exclamations and by the repetition of them. The 7th personifies the land as grieving and talks of how the soldiers will soon be buried emphasising the sadness of it. The final verse summarises the events, from the party “Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay” to the horrific Battle and all its indiscriminate death “-friend, foe,-in one red burial blent!”. Overall this piece sets out to show the horrors of war, the bloodshed and the confusion- it doesn’t even say who won! It wants to show how many are hurt, including nature and wants to contrast it strongly against the joy of the 1st verse’s ball. .
The poets portray war in many different ways: Shakespeare’s ‘Before Agincourt’ showed only positives, it showed war as a place to gain honour and to be remembered, even though it did give some negative argument, this was always reversed by antithesis, however we have to take into consideration that this piece is not a poem depicting war, but a rallying speech made to instil a sense of hope in the army, so to do this it would have to make the troops want to fight and so is unlikely to say that war is bad and they are all going to die in the mud. Lord Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ however, whilst appearing to be similar to Shakespeare’s advocating honour and remembrance as a positive to war, there is a distinct tang of irony underlying the piece as well as the poem’s strong positive/negative contrasting language. The most downbeat and gloomy outlooks on war were seen in Charles Wolfe’s ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna’, the whole piece appears lethargic and portrays war as gloom and despair, its weak half rhymes contributing to this overall effect, it is focussing on one death in a battle giving it’s audience a better sense of the sadness and grief of death, rather than just illustrating horrific destruction on a large scale, it does have one small positive with “glory” as the final word it gives a sense of hope for the future. Lord Byron’s first piece; ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ does not portray war a such, but rather a terrible destruction, it talks of the grief for the dead but it indicates that humans are nothing in comparison the God and can never hope to overpower one another if God were to intervene. Lord Byrons second piece, however ‘The Eve of Waterloo’ seeks to demonstrate the sadness of war, the needless destruction and seeks to contrast it with the initial ball, he further generalises the horror and destruction by not including who won, leaving the reader with a sense that war is pointless and a feeling of incompleteness.
There are, obviously many different ways way can be portrayed, most we have seen in some form here, however I believe the overriding, general portrayal within these poems is that while there may be glory and honour in war, there is much more death and unnecessary destruction; in a war is not where you would really want to be .
