Although both 'Dulce et Decorum Estô and 'The Charge of the Light Brigadeô are about battle and the of soldiers, they portray the experience of war in different ways.
Tennysonôs poem celebrates the glory of war, despite the fact that, because of an error of judgement ('Someone had blunderedô), six hundred soldiers were sent to their .
Owenôs poem, on the other hand, might almost have been written as a challenge to Tennysonôs rousing and jingoistic sentiments. He presents the horror of senseless in the trenches and shows us how the famous line from the Roman poet Horace, 'it is sweet and becoming to die for your countryô, is a lie.
We are told that Tennyson wrote 'Light Brigadeô 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 Brigadeô 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 'Dulceô 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 s and 'Dulceô gives a personal account of what the war was like. Many patriotic poems had been written at the time. Owen knew that they lied.
Tennysonôs poem is a celebration of the bravery of the six...