In contrast Sassoon created a sinister and threatening mood. His poem contains a mysterious haunting quality revealing the shocking brutality of what war was really like. Instead of portraying the men who fought as brave and fighting without question, he says they were, “Masked with fear,” when they had to go over the top to meet the “Bristling fire”. It is clever the way he uses bristling to depict the gunfire because by this he makes out that the gunfire is heavy. He also says, “Lines of grey, muttering faces,” which depicts a questioning attitude, which is a complete contrast to the way Tennyson describes the men. Sassoon also points out that time is not a worry to the men as they are so caught up in war. “While time ticks blank on their busy wrists.”
The language in the two poems is different. The poets use different literary terms. Tennyson begins his poem by using anaphora in the opening lines, “ Half a league, half a league, half a league onward.” Anaphora is the repetition of certain words or words to obtain a rhythmic pattern. In this historic war, the men charged at the enemy guns on horseback, so this repetition in Tennyson’s opening lines could be associated with the sound of galloping horses. Tennyson uses this again when he writes, “Cannon to the right of them, Cannon to the left of them, Cannon in front of them.”
Tennyson also uses rhetorical questions in his poem, for example, “Was there a man dismay’d?” and “ When can their glory fade?” These are questions to which no answer is required, and add dramatic effect to the poem.
Then he uses the phrase, “ The Valley of Death,” to describe the valley in which the charge took place. This phrase is taken from the Bible ( Psalm 23). In other translations of the Bible ( The Good News Bible), it is translated as, ‘the deepest darkness’. Tennyson uses it with dramatic effect as if the men were ordered to go into the ‘ deepest darkness’ to charge down the cannons. During the Victorian period of history the Bible would have been important to the Victorian people and so the poem appealed to their cultural knowledge. Tennyson also uses other terms to describe the valley, such as, “ The Jaws of Death,” and, “ The Mouth of Hell.”
Sassoon’s poem is more of a description of the surroundings. He uses descriptive and dramatic words to create powerful images. For example, “The menacing scarred slope”, and “ Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke.” His opening lines, “At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun,” also suggests that evil is about to unfold.
Sassoon then uses alliteration, when he writes, “ Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud the menacing scarred slope.” Alliteration is the repetition of consonants in nearby words, used to create a more catching line to the poem.
In his poem Sassoon also uses enjambment. This is when the meaning of one line is continued into the next. It is very effective when he uses this with the inconsistent rhyming pattern. He makes the poem more loose and thoughtful, as he intends to make it very reflective.
The layouts of the poems are also very different. Tennyson’s poem is set out in the form of five verses with different lengths. Sassoon’s poem is set out in the form of a curtailed sonnet ( a sonnet usually has fourteen lines. ‘ Attack has thirteen lines.)
The two poems are written from two points of view, and have very different purposes. Tennyson is reflecting on an event that had happened ten years beforehand and an event that he himself was not involved him. He was writing to commemorate those that had died during the charge. By the way he has written the poem, he seems to think that war was very honourable, even in defeat
Sassoon however had experienced war, and really knew what it was like to be in the front line, ( unlike Tennyson). The purpose of his poem was to tell people what war was really like. How it was frightening and sad. He clearly and blatantly had a negative view of war, as he says in his last line, “O Jesus, make it stop!” and thinks of war as dishonourable and futile, “ And hope with furtive eyes and grappling fists, flounders in the mud.”
