Tag Archives: Death

Reflection

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” and “The Dead”: The Price of Glory

Leave a comment

While both “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and “The Dead” deal with war and the death that results from it, the poems present the loss of lives in two very different lights. “The Charge of the Light Brigade” starts at the beginning of a battle, detailing the events that occur in a glorious tale that is ripe with heroic sacrifice. Even the rhythm of the poem seems to be influenced by the spirit of war, as the stressed syllables create a tempo that resembles a trot. This work seems to criticize war a little, but poem’s intended purpose appears to be to celebrate the soldiers of the light brigade and to honor them as heroes.

On the other hand, “The Dead” employs longer lines and does not describe the events of a battle. The loss of the soldiers’ lives is not as glorified as it is in “The Charge of the Light Brigade”; in fact, the poem humanizes the combatants. They are no longer just the six hundred—they are individual people, and the time they have spent on the earth has been cut tragically short. Their memories and experiences have vanished as well, and “The Dead” mourns this loss much more than “The Charge of the Light Brigade” did.

Both poems use enjambment, but they seem to use it for different purposes. Perhaps “The Charge of the Light Brigade” uses these line endings to demonstrate the moments of suspense that occurred while “all the world wonder’d” (Tennyson 33), and perhaps “The Dead” uses it to mirror the abrupt ends to the soldiers’ lives? Finally, while “The Charge of the Light Brigade” ends with a cry that honors the soldiers as heroes and praises their endless glory, “The Dead” ends with a frost that settles over the water and leaves an “unbroken glory” (Brooke 13). As frost and winter often represent an end to the life that bloomed in the spring, this final glory is different than the one in the other poem, bringing about a more silent, peaceful end.

Sofia Yi

Reflection

“The Dead” vs. “The Charge of the Light Brigade”

Leave a comment

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