Views of the War in Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade and Whitman's Drum-TapsAlthough Walt Whitman and Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote with different styles and ideals, the common The theme of war gave them the similar purpose of exposing the destructive nature of battle while remaining inspiring and even optimistic. Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade" reveals a fatal "mistake" that cost the lives of many English soldiers, while asserting that the unquestioning loyalty of British troops causes enormous pride. Whitman's Drum-Taps series of poems, particularly "Beat! Beat! Drums!", documents the tragedies that occurred during the Civil War, but maintains a feeling of hope that the war will help cleanse the nation and revitalize it. Despite the outward similarities between "Light Brigade" and Drum-Taps, there are subtle differences between the respective authors' attitudes toward war and the tones that are carried across the poems. The extreme pride Tennyson felt for England as Britain's poet laureate influenced his writings, and critics have since attacked the excessive chauvinism that seeps into "Light Brigade" (Marshall 135), since he was unable to capture the immense suffering of battle that could only be seen on the front lines, where he never set foot. In contrast, Whitman was able to capture the darker emotions that war generated in his poems because of the prolonged experience he had caring for the wounded and mourning the dead (Golden 106). Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and "Beat! Beat! Drums!" by Whitman. they seem like nationalistic poems glorifying war, but while Tennyson paints a heroic picture of valiant soldiers fighting a just war, Whitman employs a mixture of sarcasm and grim reality to portray...... middle of paper...... Jr. A Handbook of Tennyson. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1963: 110-135. Shaw, W. David. Alfred Lord Tennyson: the poet in an age of theory. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1996: 25-35. Sweet, Timothy. "Whitman's Drums and the Rhetoric of War." Traces of War: Poetry, Photography, and the Crisis of the Union. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990: 11-45.Tennyson, Alfred Lord. "The Charge of the Light Brigade." The Norton Anthology: English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996: 1954-1955.Thomas, M. Wynn. "Fratricide and Brotherly Love: Whitman and the Civil War." and. Ezra Greenspan. Walt Whitman's Cambridge Companion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995: 27-44. Whitman, Walt. "Beat! Beat! Drums!" The Norton Anthology: American Literature. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995: 1004-1005.