Comparing Dulce Et Decorum Est And The

Charge Of The Light Brigade Essay, Research Paper

Although both ‘Dulce et Decorum Estґ and ‘The Charge of the Light Brigadeґ are about battle and the death of soldiers, they portray the experience of war in different ways.

Tennysonґs poem celebrates the glory of war, despite the fact that, because of an error of judgement (‘Someone had blunderedґ), six hundred soldiers were sent to their death.

Owenґs poem, on the other hand, might almost have been written as a challenge to Tennysonґs rousing and jingoistic sentiments. He presents the horror of senseless death in the trenches and shows us how the famous line from the Roman poet Horace, ‘it is sweet and becoming to die for your countryґ, is a lie. We are told that Tennyson wrote ‘Light Brigadeґ in a few minutes after reading the description in The Times of the Battle of Balaclava in 1854. He was a civilian poet, as opposed to a soldier poet like Owen. His poem ‘Light Brigadeґ increased the morale of the British soldiers fighting in the Crimean War and of the people at home, but Tennyson had not been an eyewitness to the battle he describes. Wilfred Owen wrote ‘Dulceґ towards the end of the First World War. He was killed in action a week before the war ended in 1918. He wanted to end the glorification of war. Owen was against the propaganda and lies that were being told at the time. He had first-hand experience of war and wanted to tell people back at home the truth. Owen was an officer and often had to send men to their deaths and ‘Dulceґ gives a personal account of what the war was like. Many patriotic poems had been written at the time. Owen knew that they lied. Tennysonґs poem is a celebration of the bravery of the six hundred British troops who went into battle against all odds, even though they knew that they would be killed. The poem starts in the middle of the action. ‘Light Brigadeґ is written in dactylic feet (one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables) and this gives a sense of the excitement of the galloping horses in the cavalry charge:

‘Half a league, half a league

Half a league onwardґ

Tennyson creates a vivid impression of the bravery of the soldiers with many ‘verbs of action:

‘Flash’d all their sabres bare,

Flash’d as they turn’d in air,

Sabring the gunners thereґ

The heroic command in stanza 1, which is repeated for effect in stanza 2, sweeps the reader along without time to question the futility of the gesture:

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!

‘Charge for the guns!ґ

He uses noble sounding euphemisms like ‘the valley of Deathґ, ‘the jaws of Deathґ, ‘the mouth of Hell to describe the fate that awaits these men. He does not convey the gory reality of the slaughter. Tennyson creates a feeling of exhilaration, of the nobility of warfare with his use of poetic devices, such as rhetorical repetition:

‘Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of themґ,

and alliteration:

‘Stormed at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fellґ

Tennyson celebrates the ideal of unquestioning obedience of the soldiers in the face of death:

‘Their’s not to make reply,

Their’s not to reason why,

Their’s but to do and dieґ

In the final stanza Tennyson creates a sense of the immortality of the soldiersґ bravery with a rhetorical question and commands:

‘When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made! …

Honor the charge they made,

Honor the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred!ґ

The repetition of ‘the six hundredґ at the end of each stanza reminds the reader of the enormous loss of life, but at the end of the poem they have become the ‘Noble six hundredґ and are celebrated as heroes. Wilfred Owen in his poem is asking us to question all the certainties that Tennyson is celebrating. The theme of ‘Dulceґ is that war and dying for oneґs country are not at all not glorious. This message is echoed throughout the poem from the first stanza to the last line. In the opening stanza you get a very different image of the soldiers from what you might expect from the title. One thinks of soldiers as smart, proud, marching, and fighting, but Owenґs picture is based on his personal experience of the battlefield. There is nothing romantic about Owenґs soldiers. They are

‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludgeґ Owen presents the reader with details of what people looked like and how they felt.

‘Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod.ґ

The men are not really marching, or if they are it is a death march. These men are so tired that they are like old women and beggars floundering through the mud. They are the opposite of Tennysonґs ‘Noble six hundredґ. Owenґs picture is not glorious at all and the very first line would shock people at home who imagined the men gallantly charging forward to attack. Owen catches the mood of the scene very well. The first stanza is very slow and inactive and such words like ‘trudgeґ capture the atmosphere. He says ‘weґ when heґs talking about the menґs actions so we are reminded that he was there. The second stanza is very active and frantic in comparison. This shows the agonizing tedium the men had to put up with and then suddenly they could be killed instantly after a rush of adrenaline.

‘GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!– An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in timeґ

The contrast of ‘ecstasyґ and ‘fumblingґ is an effective way of showing this. At first, the reader is relieved that the gas masks are on, but then we realize that someone hasnґt got his on yet. A man is helplessly stumbling and Owen canґt save him. This is not a glorious death. By using vivid imagery Owen gives the reader the feelings of horror and disgust that he wants them to feel at the sight of the sight of the soldier poisoned by gas:

‘In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.ґ

This not only shows how the soldier is suffering, but that he is in terrible pain. The reader can imagine the soldierґs life flickering away. In Owenґs poem death is vividly presented as the opposite of glorious:

‘…the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sinґ

It is as if he is filling the poem with as many ugly images as he can:

‘………………………….the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tonguesґ.

During the manґs death it is as if you are reliving his torture. Owen gives us a detailed picture of the war: he talks in the first person, ‘I saw him drowningґ, and describes one dying man, in contrast to Tennysonґs rather impersonal ‘six hundredґ. He wants us to imagine that we are actually there on the battlefield so we get an idea of what it was like. This poem is the closest we will get to experiencing such atrocities and if we had, Owen tells us in the final lines, then we would not try to glorify the war any more. In the Preface to his poems, published after his death, Owen wrote, ‘All a poet can do today is warn. That is why true poets must be truthfulґ. This why he criticizes ‘the high zestґ that some people have for ‘the old Lieґ of the glory of war, and why I think that ‘Dulceґ is the more powerful poem of the two.