The Destruction Of Sennacherib edexcel 4-The-Poetry-Anthology

The Destruction of Sennacherib

Your Edexcel GCSE English Literature Conflict Anthology includes 15 poems, and in your exam you will be given one of these poems – printed in full – and asked to compare it to another one from the anthology by theme. As this is a “closed book” exam, you will not have access to the second poem, so you will need to know it from memory. Fifteen poems is a lot to revise. However, if you understand these four essential things about each poem, you will be able to produce a top-grade response:

• The meaning of the poem

• The ideas and messages the poet wanted to convey

• How the poet uses poetic methods to convey these ideas and messages

• How the ideas and themes in each poem compare and contrast with the ideas and themes of the other poems in the anthology

Here is a guide to Lord Byron’s ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’, from the Conflict Anthology. It includes the following sections:

• Overview: a breakdown of the poem, including its possible meanings and interpretations

• Writer’s methods: an analysis of the poet’s techniques and methods

• Context: an exploration of the poem’s context in relation to its themes

• What to compare it to: suggestions about which poems to compare it to in the exam

Overview

This section includes:

• The poem in a nutshell

• An explanation of the poem, section-by-section

• An outline of Byron’s intention and message in each of these sections

‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ in a nutshell

‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ retells a biblical story from the Old Testament, in which God destroys King Sennacherib’s Assyrian army as it besieges the city of Jerusalem. God is on the side of the Jewish occupants of Jerusalem, who are far less powerful than the Assyrians, and the poem is told from their perspective. Although Sennacherib’s army is huge and intimidating, God sends an even mightier force – the Angel of Death – to destroy Jerusalem’s enemies. Byron’s focus on the dead Assyrians illustrates the suffering caused by conflict. The poem explores the power dynamics and tragic effects of war, as well as the idea that God’s power is greater than any human army.

‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ breakdown

Lines 1–4

“The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; 

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.”

Explanation

• The Assyrian, King Sennacherib, approaches Jerusalem ferociously, like a wolf attacking sheep

• Sennacherib’s army looks splendid and powerful with their purple banners and gold armour

• Their spears shine in the light, and are as numerous as the stars reflected in the sea in Galilee (a coastal region in Israel)

Byron’s intention

• Byron dehumanises King Sennacherib by describing him as a wolf:

  • He shows the terrifying power and violence of the Assyrian army by comparing it to a wolf attacking a herd of sheep

• The threat posed by Sennacherib’s army is implied by this simile, in which the citizens of Jerusalem are the sheep in the “fold”

• The poem emphasises the number and power of the Assyrian army by comparing their shining spears to stars, which are countless and indestructible

Lines 5–8

“Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, 

That host with their banners at sunset were seen: 

Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, 

That host on the morrow lay wither’d and strown.”

Explanation

• The huge number of Assyrian soldiers is as great as the leaves in the forest in summer

• However, the next day (“on the morrow”) they are all dead, dried up (“wither’d”) and scattered about (“strown”)

• Now, they are like the leaves in the forest after the autumn winds have blown them from the trees

Byron’s intention

• Byron conveys the huge number of soldiers in the Assyrian army in a simile comparing them to the number of leaves in the forest

• The soldiers are then compared with dead leaves, blown off the trees by autumn winds:

  • This simile shows the complete destruction of the army

• It also implies that the force that destroyed them was natural and inevitable, like the coming of autumn:

  • This is because the army was destroyed by God’s intervention in the conflict

• By juxtaposing the two similes in this stanza, Byron is illustrating how suddenly the change has happened and how decisively God has acted

Lines 9–12

“For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 

And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass’d; 

And the eyes of the sleepers wax’d deadly and chill, 

And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!”

Explanation

• The army is destroyed because the Angel of Death has flown over it, carried on a mighty wind

• He has killed the enemy soldiers by breathing in their faces as they slept

• The soldiers’ eyes have become lifeless (“wax’d”) and their hearts have stopped forever after beating one final time

Byron’s intention

• These lines show the power of the Angel of Death, who only has to breathe in the faces of the sleeping soldiers to kill them

• By introducing this biblical figure, Byron increases the supernatural and mythical qualities of the poem

• Byron is illustrating God’s power, which is greater than the mighty Assyrian army

Lines 13–20

“And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, 

But through it there roll’d not the breath of his pride: 

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,

And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. 

And there lay the rider distorted and pale, 

With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail; 

And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, 

The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.”

Explanation

• A horse is lying, dead; its nostrils are wide and its mouth has foamed as it died:

  • The white foam on the ground beside it is as cold as surf on the sea

• Its rider, an Assyrian soldier, is lying beside it:

  • He is covered by the morning dew, and his armour is discoloured and corroded (“rusty”)

• The paleness of the soldier presents a dramatic contrast with the “purple and gold” splendour of the army at the start of the poem

• The tents of the Assyrian army are silent, their banners are unmanned, their lances are lying on the ground, and the war trumpets are not blown any longer, as they have been defeated

Byron’s intention

• These lines show the devastating impact of the angel’s destruction of the Assyrians; even the horses have died

• Byron uses the metaphor of one horse and one rider to symbolise all the horses and soldiers in the Assyrian army:

  • This enables him to focus on the effects of the destruction in a more detailed and dramatic way

• The agony of the horse’s death is implied by its foaming mouth and flared nostrils

• The list of war equipment that remains, unused, demonstrates the complete wipeout of every aspect of the Assyrian army

Lines 21–24

“And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, 

And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; 

And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!”

Explanation

• Back in the Assyrian city of Assur, the widows of the soldiers cry out loudly in sorrow 

• The statues in the temple of Baal, an Assyrian deity, are broken

• The non-Jewish (“Gentile”) Assyrian army has been destroyed like melting snow by God, who has killed the soldiers without using weapons

Byron’s intention

• These lines show the aftermath for the Assyrian people following the destruction of their king and his army

• Ashur is the god of the city of Assur:

  • Byron uses the name as a metonym for the city, which emphasises the non-Jewish nature of the Assyrians’ belief system

• Describing the widows crying for the lost men conveys sympathy for them, but it could also be read as a celebration of Jerusalem’s victory

• Referring to the idols of Baal as “broken” implies that the Assyrians’ religious beliefs are false, because the god of the Jews has destroyed the Assyrian army 

• The reference to the enemy’s forces melting “like snow” aligns God’s power with nature and natural processes, suggesting Byron’s belief that the outcome of the conflict was natural and just 

The final exclamation mark emphasises the triumphant tone of the final two lines 

Writer’s methods

Although this section is organised into three separate sections – form, structure and language – it is important to take an integrated approach to AO2. That means you should only consider how the poet is presenting their ideas to help you understand why they have made those choices. Think about how Byron’s language, structure and form contribute to his themes, message and intentions. 

Focusing on the themes, rather than individual poetic techniques, will gain you far more marks. In the following sections, all analysis is arranged by theme, including the intentions behind Byron’s choices of:

• Form

• Structure

• Language

Form

Byron’s use of regular, rhyming quatrains give the poem a lively, dramatic feel, but this is contradicted by the tragic subject of his poem. The effect of this contrast between form and content reflects the contrast between Byron’s commemoration of Jerusalem’s triumph and the tragedy of war. Byron shows God’s power in defending the heavily outnumbered Jews, but details the terrible consequences of the conflict for the Assyrian soldiers and those they leave behind.

Structure

Byron uses a strict structure and rhyming scheme for his six stanzas, conveying a strong sense of control. Initially, this control characterises the ranks of the Assyrian army, but the focus soon switches to their loss of control in the face of God’s power. Byron uses poetic techniques to give the events in the poem a sense of inevitability and to emphasise his themes of power and control, and the violence of war.

Language

The poem tells the story of ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ in a straightforward way. It uses a number of natural similes to convey the theme of power; first the Assyrian army’s, and then God’s. However, Byron’s language shows that his sympathy is with the people of Jerusalem, even when he details the terrible consequences of war for the Assyrian army and those they leave behind.