The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sam Cimino

Mr. Hamilton

AP Literature 6^th hour

20 November 2014

The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Biography on Alfred, Lord Tennyson: More than any other Victorian writer, Tennyson has seemed the embodiment of his age, both to his contemporaries and to modern readers. In his own day he was said to be—with Queen Victoria and Gladstone—one of the three most famous living persons, a reputation no other poet writing in English has ever had. As official poetic spokesman for the reign of Victoria, he felt called upon to celebrate a quickly changing industrial and mercantile world with which he felt little in common, for his deepest sympathies were called forth by an unaltered rural England; the conflict between what he thought of as his duty to society and his allegiance to the eternal beauty of nature seems peculiarly Victorian. Even his most severe critics have always recognized his lyric gift for sound and cadence, a gift probably unequaled in the history of English poetry, but one so absolute that it has sometimes been mistaken for mere facility.

Form- meter and structure (rhyme/stanza): Before we analyze any poems, let us first discuss its history. In the Western world, we can thank the ancient Greeks for systematizing an understanding of meter and providing a vocabulary (including the words rhythm and meter) that enables us to discuss the art of poetry. Meter comes from a Greek word meaning “measure”: What we measure in the English language are the patterns of stressed (or accented) syllables that occur naturally when we speak, and, just as when we measure length, the unit we use in measuring poetry is the foot. Most traditional poetry in English uses the accentual-syllabic form of meter- meaning that its rhythmic pattern is based on both a set number of syllables per line and a regular pattern of accents in each line. Not all poems have a regular metrical pattern, and not all metered poems follow only one pattern throughout. But like everyday speech, the language of poetry always has some accents (as in this italic emphasis on “some”), and poets arrange that rhythm for effect. Thus in nonmetrical as well as metrical poetry, a reader should “listen” for patterns of stress. In Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” we can see that these things hold true:

 

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.

 

 'Forward, the Light Brigade!'

 Was there a man dismay'd ?

 Not tho' the soldier knew

 Some one had blunder'd:

 Theirs not to make reply,

 Theirs not to reason why,

 Theirs but to do & die,

 Into the valley of Death

 Rode the six hundred.

 

 Cannon to right of them,

 Cannon to left of them,

 Cannon in front of them

 Volley'd & thunder'd;

 Storm'd at with shot and shell,

 Boldly they rode and well,

 Into the jaws of Death,

 Into the mouth of Hell

 Rode the six hundred.

 

 Flash'd all their sabres bare,

 Flash'd as they turn'd in air

 Sabring the gunners there,

 Charging an army while

 All the world wonder'd:

 Plunged in the battery-smoke

 Right thro' the line they broke;

 Cossack & Russian

 Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,

 Shatter'd & sunder'd.

 Then they rode back, but not

 Not the six hundred.

 

 Cannon to right of them,

 Cannon to left of them,

 Cannon behind them

 Volley'd and thunder'd;

 Storm'd at with shot and shell,

 While horse & hero fell,

 They that had fought so well

 Came thro' the jaws of Death,

 Back from the mouth of Hell,

 All that was left of them,

 Left of six hundred.

 

 When can their glory fade?

 O the wild charge they made!

 All the world wonder'd.

 Honour the charge they made!

 Honour the Light Brigade,

 Noble six hundred!

Analysis: This poem was written to memorialize a suicidal charge by light cavalry over open terrain by British forces in the Battle of Balaclava (Ukraine) in the Crimean War (1854-56). 247 men of the 637 in the charge were killed or wounded. Britain entered the war, which was fought by Russia against Turkey, Britain and France, because Russia sought to control the Dardanelles. Russian control of the Dardanelles threatened British sea routes. Many in the west best know of this war today because of Florence Nightingale, who trained and led nurses aiding the wounded during the war in a manner innovative for those times. The War was also noteworthy as an early example of the work of modern war correspondents (http://www.nationalcenter.org/ChargeoftheLightBrigade.html#sthash.raAcEqdQ.dpuf). Anyways back to the poem itself, in six irregular stanzas, Tennyson describes the movement of the troops down the long valley at Balaklava. Sitting on the ridge at the end of this depression are batteries of Russian artillery, whose fusillade decimated the cavalrymen as they approached. In stanza 1, the commander’s directive to “Charge for the guns” vividly captures the reckless abandon that would lead to disastrous consequences. The reaction of the troops is captured in the second stanza.

Next, as in many odes, the stanza pattern of “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is irregular. An eight-line opening stanza gives way to two stanzas of nine lines, in which the poet sets the stage for the charge and describes the entry into the valley. The central action of the battle and its aftermath is described in two longer stanzas, of twelve and eleven lines, respectively. The final stanza, only six lines, serves as an epitaph honoring the brave men who sacrificed themselves in serving their country. The rhyme scheme, too, is irregular. In some stanzas, only two or three lines are rhymed. In others, Tennyson inserts a number of couplets and triplets.

I have always loved this poem since I first heard it in the movie The Blind Side, it inspires courage in the face of death and I admire the soldiers who fought in this losing battle with valor and honor.