Compare how 'Charge of the Light Brigade' and 'Bayonet Charge' present a soldier's

experience of war. [30 marks]

Plan your big ideas in the table below. Then cut and paste the table and add evidence and
technique to the ideas. Then write your essay. It should be roughly 800 – 1000 words long.
Please look at the exemplar essay in Teams Files comparing the presentation of power in
‘Ozymandias’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ for how to write a comparative essay. Any questions,
get in touch.

‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ ‘Bayonet Charge’

London The Prelude

• Detrimental impact of living in an • Wordsworth receives powerful

industrialised city. The city seems to
negatively imprint itself upon the
city-bound dwellers.
• Man trying to control the natural
world
sensations from exposure to nature.
• His child’s mind is shaped by the
raw strength of the sublime
characteristics of natural
phenomenon.

• People governed by economic • Nature seems alive.

considerations.
• Nature possessed of an underlying
• Lack of freedom. power. Anyone who comes into
direct contact with it, will have the
• The poem contains a prevailing experience imprinted upon their very
sense of death and decay being.
•
How is man’s relationship to nature presented in Blake’s poem ‘London?’
Compare it with one other poem of your choice.
London
• Detrimental impact of living in an
industrialised city. The city seems to
negatively imprint itself upon the
city-bound dwellers.
“marks of weakness, marks of woe”
the city has had a detrimental
physical impact upon people. People
seem unhealthy. Repetition of
‘marks’ suggesting the physical
impact that city life leaves upon its
inhabitants.
• Man trying to control the natural
world
“chartered Thames”
• People governed by economic
considerations
“chimney-sweeper’s cry”
“youthful harlot’s curse”
The Prelude
• Wordsworth receives powerful
sensations from exposure to nature.
“troubled pleasure”
“upreared its head”
• His child’s mind is shaped by the
raw strength of the sublime
characteristics of natural
phenomenon.
“were a trouble to my dreams”
 Sense of freedom
• Nature seems alive
“like a living thing / Strode after
me.” The verb “strode” personifies
Nature and makes it seem a living
presence that Wordsworth must
contend with.
 • Nature possessed of an underlying
• The poem contains a prevailing power. Anyone who comes into
sense of death and decay direct contact with it, will have the
“the marriage hearse” experience imprinted upon their very
being.
“over my thoughts / There hung a
darkness”

How is man’s relationship to nature presented in Blake’s poem ‘London?’

Compare it with one other poem of your choice. - The Prelude

Throughout Blake’s poem ‘London’ and Wordsworth’s poem ‘The Prelude’ we see how
individuals are shaped by their environment for better or worse. In ‘London’ it seems that the
city-bound dwellers are suffering from living in an industrialised landscape. By contrast,
Wordsworth’s younger self seems at liberty to experience the sublime power of nature. Both
poems illustrate just how connected we are to the landscape that we occupy and the
significance it has on shaping who we are.
Blake’s ‘London’ presents a very negative view of city life. Throughout we can hear the
suffering of the populace. The prophet-like speaker notes the cries of “every man” and we
hear the “hapless soldier’s sigh.” It’s a highly auditory poem where we hear first-hand the
anguish of the city occupants. It is as though he is deliberately taking stock of the discontent
on view. Indeed, he seems to see the inhabitants as being restricted by their environment as
he declares that in every man-made law or “ban” the “mind-forged manacles I hear” …
[close-analysis of image – chains, servitude.]
By contrast, Wordsworth’s poem focuses upon the liberating experiences of contact with the
natural world. Wordsworth reflects on the experience of rowing late at night upon a lake.
Nature is presented as being both beautiful and intimidating, and certainly is shown as having
a powerful effect upon the developing mind of Wordsworth as a young boy. In the poem he
describes how the cliff face “upreared its head;” this personification conveys the idea that
nature is alive and consequently this connection to the life of nature makes Wordsworth feel
alive
In conclusion, the poems seem to articulate that individuals come alive when they have close
connection with the natural world, and how in contrast, those who are denied connection to
the natural world seem dead, and thus will forever occupy the “marriage hearse” an image
suggestive of baroness and lack of fertility and hope.

“the child is father of the man”