Poetry Comparison

Poetry Comparison

There have been many wars throughout time. Most people learn the facts

through: papers, films, books or poems, but I am comparing two similar

poems which have different meanings. Wilfred Owen who wrote the poem

'Dulce et Decorum est' or Lord Alfred Tennyson who wrote 'The Charge

of the Light Brigade'. They are both based around the theme of war.

Lord Alfred Tennyson is pro war and thinks it's a good thing to die

for your country. His poem was written to memorialise the Battle of

Balaclava in the Crimean war (1854 - 56) he wrote it ten years later,

on: April 10th 1864. He was born in 1809 and died at the age of 83 in

1892. Wilfred Owen is against war and he writes about the First World

War, He was in the war unlike Alfred Tennyson and Owen expresses his

feelings more disapprovingly. Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 and his

poem was published in 1920 (December). Both these poets have strong

but opposing views about war.

'Dulce et Decorum est' means it's a good and noble thing to die for

your country, which is ironic as Wilfred Owen doesn't think this is

true and he thought war was horrific. This poem is about the First

World War and Owen describes how he feels and he describes the

trenches appalling from first hand experience. At the beginning the

troops are marching in awful conditions to battle. Then suddenly

there's a gas attack and Owen recalls exactly what happened. Towards

the end of the poem the tone changes, he reflects and he makes his

view on war clear. The structure is written from his point of view and

how awful war was to him.

The soldiers are ready to fight and are hunched in the trenches 'Bent

d...

... middle of paper ...

...od in war unlike 'Dulce et

decorum est' who thinks it is a bad thing to die for your country.

There attitudes are different because Owen is always describing how

atrocious war is and describes the deaths around him and he describes

how terrible the battle field is. Tennyson on the other hand tries not

to mention death and he doesn't describe the atmosphere of injuries,

he says they are hero's. The poems are very different though, they

have different uses for the same punctuation and emphasise lines for

different things, Likes Owen would emphasise death and Tennyson would

emphasise the heroes with the way they use the same punctuation. The

poem I Preferred would be 'Dulce et decorum est' because it is smaller

but makes you imagine the battle in much more detail. His use of

metaphors makes you see the scene more clearly.