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Comparing texts can seem like a really tricky thing to do at first glance, but as with any analysis, it is all about taking your time and working methodically.
In this activity, you will look at two poems, 'Futility' by Wilfred Owen (1918) and an extract from 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1855).
You will work through the poems, looking for similarities and differences in order to compare them. You might also begin to see how to identify these points of comparison when you see analyse poetry independently.
Have a read through each of the poems, and get ready to answer some questions.
Futility - Wilfred Owen
Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields half-sown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke once the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?
Extract from The Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
II
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
III
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.
