Comparing Dulce et Decorum Est and Charge of the Light Brigade Essay

Compare and contrast Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen and Charge of the Light Brigade by Lor Alfred Tennyson.

Dulce et Decorum est was written by Wilfred Owen in 1917. Owen was killed one week before World War 1 ended and wrote this poem based on his experiences during this time. He uses this poem to describe how different World War 1 was to any other war. It was different as the war was fought in trenches and not on battle fields. Also, WW1 was fought between Britain, France and USA (this was the allied forces) against Germany, Austria and Hungary. Dulce et Decorum est pro patri a mori means sweet and proper to die for your country. Owen uses the quote, the old lie to show that fighting and dying for your country isnt as good as everyone thinks. The poem tells of soldiers returning from the front line to distant rest where they are immediately hit by a gas attack. One man is left helpless when he fails to get his helmet on in time to save himself.

My friend you would not tell such a zest to children, the old lie Owen uses this line to involve the reader in the poem. Also, he uses it to tell the reader about how they are being lied too about the wonder of the war and that it is not what they think it is. In addition, by saying my friend it is almost as if he in trying to gain the trust of the reader to ensure they believe what he has to say. Moreover, the reader may start to agree with Owen as the images he creates in the readers mind are rather disturbing. Owen also uses this technique to show that people are being lied to about how good the war is and about how they shouldnt worry when in fact they should be worrying every second of everyday that something truly awful will happen. Owen also describes the soldiers independently, he uses old beggars under sacks to show they are lonely.

Wilfred Owen uses the quote like a man un fire or lime to create suspense. He uses the ellipsis to show that the suffering caused by the war is never ending. Also, it shows the war is inescapable, just like fire. In addition, the quote; gas! Gas! is used by the poet to emphasise the stanza. It shows the panic and chaos that surrounds the war and what it has brought on the soldiers too. The three dashes after the quote on innocent tongues could be referring to the death of a soldier. As if the pause in the poem is the soldiers slowly dying from the gas attack.

One of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's best knownpoems, and indeed one of the most famous warpoemsof all times, The Chargeof the Light Brigade. Tennysonwrote The Chargeof the Light Brigade on December 2, 1854, afterreadingan article in the LondonTimesabout the Battle of Balaclava in theCrimean War, which was fought from 1853 to 1856 between Russia on one side and England, France, Turkey, andSardiniaon the other. In this case, the phrase from the newspaper article was some hideous blunder, which appears in the poem as someone had blundered: this might indicate thatTennysonwas seeking to blame someone for the disastrous massacre that wiped out the Light Brigade, but the "someone" is never mentioned again. This poem is about courage, not about the bad luck or stupidity that put the men of the Light Brigade cavalry in a position to display that courage.

The beginning lines of thepoemthrowthe readerintothe centerof action, with a rousing chant that drivesthe reader, both in its descriptionand in its galloping rhythm, toward the battle. A "league" is approximately three miles long: charging horses could coverhalf a league in a few minutes. The audiences of the time of thepoemwould have been familiar with the Battle of Balaclava in theCrimean War, upon which thepoemis based, and would have known from the beginning that they were charging to their own doom. Thepoemsuggests that it is these moments before the battle has begun that are the Brigade's greatest glory.

The soldiers of the Light Brigade are not portrayed in this poem as having any illusions that their attack made sense: in the second stanza we see that they were aware of the fact that their charge was not the result of sound strategy, but of a blunder. But what is a soldier to do whencommandsdo not seem correct? For officers, military training is about developing strategies, butthe soldieris trained to follow the strategies that are given to him. Often, the actions that soldiers are required toperformwill not seem to them to serve anyusefulfunction: soldiers do not have full intelligence about what is going on at otherplacesat thesame time.

In these two poems there are many similarities. One of the main being the message the poem sends. The Charge Of The Light Brigade uses emotive language to help people to understand the ignorant choice to send 600 perfectly good soldiers to their death. Moreover, Delce et Decorum est also uses emotive language when describing how the men marched to battle, suffered from gas attacks and watched their friends die before their eyes.

However, these two poems also have many differences. One of the most crucial differences was that Wilfred Owen was present at the war so he knew what it was like to suffer through it. Whereas, Tennyson found out about the Battle of Balaclava through reading it in the newspaper, therefore he wasnt present to the event and didnt know the exact details of what happened or how it was caused.