English War Poetry - page 2
Keywords: With Detailed Reference to Any Four Poems from the Anthology You Have Studied, Explain the Way Different Poets Convey a Range of Aspects In war
By Riko V on 16/05/2007
Level: GCSE Key Stage 4 (Years 10-11)
Page Number: 2 of 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
line, the poet writes of a ‘sweeter sod’ which implies that the graves of the dead soldiers are beautiful. The sod is sweeter ‘than Fancy’s feet have ever trod’. The reader is led to believe that the graves are so beautiful we cannot even imagine it- ‘Fancy’ refers to the imagination. ‘By fairy hands their knell is wrung’ give the impression of angelic, heavenly figures remembering the dead the dead at their graveside. ‘Honour’ even pays tribute to the dead for the bravery that they have shown in battle. Thus honour is a quality that the reader is led to associate with the soldiers. The use of the word ‘Freedom’ in the penultimate line of the final stanza shows how the soldiers fought for freedom and achieved it. Indeed freedom itself wishes ‘to dwell a weeping hermit’ by the graves in order to honour the dead and the sacrifice they have made.
The rhyme scheme of AABB is meant to sound calm and peaceful like the resting place of the dead.
‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ written by Lord Alfred Tennyson. Tennyson wrote this poem in 1854 after reading an article in the London Times about the Crimean War. The war was fought between England and her allies against Russia between 1853-1856. Tennyson was attracted by the phrase ‘some hideous blunder’. He wrote the poem about the heroism of the soldiers and the stupidity that put the men of the Light Brigade Cavalry in a situation where they had to demonstrate that heroism. It is the later comment which relates it strongly to the poem ‘Ode, Written in the Beginning of the Year 1746’, for example the words ‘how sleep the brave’ echo the words ‘noble six hundred’ in the ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’.
‘Half a league, half a league
Half a league onward.’
The writer employs dactylic dimeter in the poem, by doing this he is stressing the arduous nature of war and how every league gained is an achievement. A sign of the heroism of the brigade is how much ground they have gained against all the odds.
‘All in the valley of death’
This is a reference to the Biblical Psalm of David. By creating this allusion Tennyson is giving them a righteous, almost God like status, and with this status comes a feeling that they should be respected. It also shows how brave the soldiers were ‘Even
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