Comparing The Charge Of The Light Brigade And Mametz Wood

Compare how poets portray war in The Charge Of The Light Brigade and one other poem

In The Charge of The Light Brigade and Mametz Wood, both Sheers and Tennyson present similar ideas about war. The reader is given the distinct impression from both poems that the authors think that war is a waste of time, unnecessary and pointless. In Mametz Wood Sheers talks about "the wasted young" suggesting that these soldiers that have been found in the farmers field died before their time because of war and that they shouldn't have, that maybe their deaths were pointless. Similarly in The Charge of The Light Brigade, Tennyson says "someone had blunder'd" meaning that the death of these six hundred men was a mistake, a fateful accident and that it was a wasted that they should die because of other people's mistakes. However both present a unique and slightly different take on war. One is about the Battle of the Somme whereas the other is about the Battle of Balaclava.
Sheers uses the line 'skeletons paused mid dance macabre,' to create pathos, getting the reader to empathise with these brave men who were killed in the war. Macabre is a French word describing the horrors of death and so Sheers is describing to the reader what a horrible death these men had. It also puts an image in the readers mind of the soldiers all linked arms, showing a unity between them and that they all respected each other and looked out for each other. Another example of imagery is 'the earth stood sentinel.' This puts forward an image of the earth almost standing still to honour the soldiers, much like we stand still for a two minute silence on Remembrance Day to pay tribute to those who have died, the earth is standing still to respect the death of these soldiers. It is hiding the bodies to try and preserve what is left of their legacy but at the same time is paying respect to them by revealing what