Analysis of The Charge of the Light Brigade

Hello and welcome to my Light Brigade Tennyson Charge tutorial. In this poem, Tennyson describes what happened to the British

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cavalry force at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War, where due to miscommunication of orders, hundreds of soldiers were killed or wounded. The poem is really interesting to study at the beginning of a sequence of lessons on war poetry or if you are studying the conflict section of AQA's past and present anthology because it provides a really interesting contrast to some of the attitudes towards armed conflict expressed in poems written during or after World War I for most of this tutorial.

I'm just going to look at two stanzas at a time, although you'll see that as we go through this there will be a bit of cross-referencing back and forth, so let's just take a look at the first two stanzas half a league half a league half a league in forward everyone in the valley of death rode the 600 forward the Light Brigade

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d for the weapons said to the valley of death the 600 rode forward the Light The

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was there, a dismayed man, not although the soldier knew that someone had committed a error, not to answer, not to reason why, but to do and die in the valley of death, rode the 600.

Now you can probably hear how the poet Alfred Lord. Tennyson sets a very deliberate pace and rhythm in the first stanza with half a league half a league half a league onwards and this repetition represents the

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that the horses were making as they rode into battle and this idea of ​​rhythm that is injected at the beginning of the poem moves on to line 5 here, where we get a bit of direct speech about who the intended speaker is, it is kept deliberately vague and refers presumably to the voices of one of the offices run by the Light Brigade, perhaps even Lord Cardigan, who supposedly took place. in battle, but by keeping the details of that detail hidden, Tennyson stops short of openly criticizing those in charge who sent the Light Brigade on this suicidal attack and instead directs the blame in line 12 at someone who had made a mistake, which seems incredibly an unbelievable understatement considering the circumstances and this is an important point to realize and remember when you are studying this poem, which is that rather than being interested in criticizing the Authority, Tennyson chooses to high

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the heroism of the common cavalryman. who rode into battle knowing that someone had made a mistake and still followed orders regardless of this attitude towards the relationship between officers and soldiers is expressed in a phrase that even made its way into modern language is towards the second half of the stanza to theirs no reason why theirs, but to do and to die, is probably the most famous line of the poem and begins one of the most important themes that by not defying Authority and blindly following orders even in the face of certain death, the Light Brigade was behaving honorably in stanzas three and four. are mainly thematically related to the battle itself cannon to the right of them cannon to the left of them cannon in front of them they released volleys and thunder they shot out and rode bravely and well into the jaws of death into the mouth of hell they rode the six hundred flashed, all their naked sabers flashed as they spun in the air, attacking the gunners, charging at an army while everyone wondered, they plunged into the smoke of the battery across the line they broke.

The Cossacks and Russians staggered from the blow of the saber, shattered and split. He came back, but not all six hundred, so like I said, stanza three begins to describe the battle itself and quickly makes it pretty clear what an impossible situation the soldiers were in surrounded by cannons shooting at them from all directions. the cannons to the left of them, but from a literature point of view, this is an opportunity for some really good, close language

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, first of all through this section here volley and thunder and the word volley suggests that the rapid succession of cannon shots is so fast that the sounds are superimposed resembling almost simultaneous cannon shots and in the word thundered with its obvious connotations of a huge, deep and menacing noise, these images are then cleverly linked in the following phrase attacked with gunshots and projectiles and this suggests that they were being attacked. they shot in such quantity that it was almost like rain and the heroism of the soldiers is indicated here by the use of this adverb here boldly, but this is then juxtaposed with two metaphors in the next part here and it is worth giving them a little attention.

When looking at the first of these, the jaws of death and the mouth of hell, notice that both death and hell are given capital letters here as if Tennyson were personifying them into enormous dangerous and violent creatures that are about to swallow and consume to the soldiers and there is an It is inevitable here in the choice of language, which suggests that the soldiers ride towards certain death and yet his focus on this dancer is pure observation. Comment on how well the soldiers rode this fighter. He is again devoid of criticism for the leaders who sent the men to their place. deaths is free of the fear and anger confusion panic bitterness suffering that would surely have been experienced by the soldiers who lived through this Tennyson wants us to see this as a heroic charge against impossible odds and encourages us to view them with greater admiration The evidence for this is found in the next stanza where we have the word flashed repeated twice at the beginning of consecutive lines to suggest a bright light shining and reflecting on the drawn swords which are now used, of course, to attack the enemy and It is quite a romantic image of war with the Minh cavalry at the back of a house twirling their swords above their heads as they ride into battle and these light images contrast with the images in the middle and last part of the stanza, particularly the part here: I am alone highlighting the smoke submerged in the battery which provides a clear indication of the large volume of artillery fired from the cannons literally blackening the air with smoke and the poem as a whole is full of action and no more than this. stanza stanza four where hand-to-hand combat takes place and our attention is drawn again to the impossible odds that the Light Brigade faces with this internal rhyme here charging at an army because it is the vowels that create the rhyme that here we call this assonant a Despite the odds, the soldiers managed to break through the Russian cannon line and the verbs here stagger shattered and Sunday describe the violence that the Light Brigade inflicted on their enemy now, at this point, anyone reading the poem might be led to believe that the battle had been a magnificent or improbable success and one that could well leave everyone wondering, yet this jury here breaking the penultimate line and the repetition of the word do not both work together to indicate a change of significant tone, okay, let's have a look at the final part of the poem, stanzas five and six, cannons to the right of them, cannons to the left of them, cannons behind them released volleys and thunder, shots and projectiles came out as the horse and the hero fell, those who had fought so well passed through the jaws of death returned from the mouth of hell all that was left of them was 600 When can their glory fade? are the wild charge that they made everyone wondered honor the charge that they made honor the noble Light Brigade 600 okay, so the mirrors of stanza 5 stand a3 and much of its content and that is a structural point Quite interesting if you are going to write about this poem in your exams, however there are one or two quite important differences, for example in line 3 here the canons are now behind them. for the

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has turned and now rides away following the attack bravely they rode and well in the first part of the poem it has been usurped by this alliterative line as the horse and the hero fell, in fact the brigade had suffered losses significant is suggested by the lines at the end of the stanza all that was left of them, in fact, of the approximately 600 soldiers that made up the Light Brigade there were 278 who died or were wounded along with more than 300 horses, begins the final stanza of the poem. with a rhetorical question: when can his glory fade?, to which we are encouraged to answer well, never and this final part of the poem is full of vocabulary that has this same type of message before the word glory, honor, repeated twice and Noble at the end. from the poem the fact that the honor is repeated twice honor the charge they made honor the Light Brigade is significant because these are imperatives these are commands Tennyson tells us to do this now I started this tutorial by stating how interesting this poem is read it in contrast to some of the other poems that you may well read that deal with the theme of war and, as you continue to study other poems or as you read other poems of your own interest, it will be interesting for you to ask yourself if you find that Is this message still relevant today, is it still reflected in the poems that were written during and after World War I or does it have the tone and content of the theme of those poems, the message in the ideas that have been conveyed, is it? they've changed?

I suppose you will find a much greater sense of anger, bitterness and loss in the poems you will read as people began to realize the true horrors of armed conflict.