In our anthologies we have had a choice of many different poems, and they where all about either people in the war or what has happened afterwards. I have chosen these five poems to write about:
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Disabled
In Flanders Field
The Man He Killed
Dulce Et Decorum Est
In each poem I will look at the effects in each poem such as rhythm, alliteration and many others. Also I will write what I think the poems are about, and what I think some parts of them mean, and also how they affect me as a reader.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
The first poem I am writing about is ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ written by Lord Alfred Tennyson. It is about the battle of Balaclava, where six hundred men rode into battle and only two hundred came back out alive.
I noticed that the rhythm of the poem is fast, like the feet of running horses ‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’. This makes you feel like you’re actually there with them, it makes you feel excited but then as they ride into battle the reality hits and they realise they are riding into death.
I also noticed that the author uses a lot of repetition like when he says ‘Half a league‘. He mentions this quite a lot in the poem and I think it shows how far the men go into battle and also I think it makes you feel like you’re going with them. When he uses ‘cannon’ it shows how they were surrounded by the cannons with no way out. I think this shows a lot of pity because this was the main reason why so many of the men died.
He uses alliteration too. In the part of the poem where it says ‘sabre stroke shatter’d and sunder’d’ its effective in the way that it makes all the s’ sound like the bullets of the guns whizzing past the soldiers ears.
He uses many words that make you feel pity like ‘death’ this because nobody wants to die and also they were so young you feel sorry for them because they missed out on so much, ‘hell’