One of the main differences between “The Dead” and “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is that Tennyson’s poem glorifies war whereas Brooke doesn’t necessarily do that as much in his poem. Tennyson writes about the Battle of Balaclava in 1854 which is regarded as an instance of military incompetence. However, the only time he touches on that is in line 12 when he writes, “some one had blunder’d:” In actuality Tennyson paints a pretty horrific picture of the battlefield by using phrases such as the “valley of Death” (7), “the mouth of Hell” (24), and the “jaws of Death” (25). He also utilizes anaphora of certain words like “cannon” and “flash’d” to demonstrate just how surrounded the light brigade was by the weapons. By doing this he’s emphasizing the bravery and courage of the soldiers for charging into this environment, despite the mistake their commander made earlier. Tennyson’s poem glorifies and justifies war where there was military inefficiency and human loss.

“The Dead”, on the other hand, focuses much more on the individual soldiers and the loss of the lives they had to live. Brooke acknowledges the inevitability of death since the poem going from the morning dusk to the night at the end seems to symbolize the progression of life. However, Brooke emphasizes the soldiers’ innocence as he describes them has having “hearts were women of human joys and cares” (1), and leaving an “unbroken glory, a gathered radiance” (13). He also doesn’t indict war nor does he glorify it as Tennyson does. Although he acknowledges the sadness that comes with war and death, he also sees beauty during that time with the “waters blown by changing winds to laughter/And lit by the rich skies, all day” (9-10). After reading the two poems I don’t think that one necessarily depicts war better than the other. They both represent different sides of war and different opinions towards war in different time periods. As we discussed in class, “The Dead” was written around WWI where there were more casualties and more civilians experienced the pain of losing a family member – who wasn’t necessarily groomed to have a military career – to war, so it explains the more humanistic views towards war. Tennyson’s poem, on the other hand, was written during a time when there weren’t so many casualties, the soldiers were more or less aristocratic and the wars not as major.

-Julia