poem

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Context

• Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) was one of 11 children born to an upper-middle class country vicar. He received a good literary education.
• Alfred started writing poetry from a young age and published his first poems while still a student at Cambridge. His poems range from those focused on the legend of King Arthur to those dealing with the loss of a loved one.
• In 1850 he became poet laureate. This meant he had to write important poems about events that affected the British nation. He held this post until his death in 1892, making him the country's longest ever serving laureate.
• In the video below poet Sheila Parry talks about who Tennyson was and how his position influenced his writing.

Subject matter

• The Crimean War was fought between Britain and Imperial Russia from 1853-1856. For the first time in history, newspapers carried eye-witness reports as well as detailing not just the triumphs of war but the mistakes and horrors as well.
• The most significant moment in the Crimea came during the Battle of Balaclava. An order given to the British army's cavalry division (known as the Light Brigade) was misunderstood and 600 cavalrymen ended charging down a narrow valley straight into the fire of Russian cannons. Over 150 British soldiers were killed, and more than 120 were wounded. At home the news of the disaster was a sensation and a nation that had until then embraced British military exploits abroad began to question the politicians and generals who led them.
• In the video below poet Sheila Parry talks about The Charge of the Light Brigade and the prominence it gave (and still gives) to that incident.

Form and structure

• The poem has a strong rhythm. For example "half a league, half a league" two light beats followed by a heavy beat expresses the sound of the horses galloping.
• There are six numbered stanzas, as if each stanza is a memorial stone to 100 of the 600 cavalrymen. The length of the stanzas reflect the structure of the story.
• The first three stanzas - the Light Brigade is approaching the guns.
• There is a strong structure. Three lines (of three six-to-seven syllables) are followed by a shorter line (five syllables: "rode the six hundred"). This pattern suggests the strong formation in which the cavalry charge.
• Stanza two – the Light Brigade has engaged the enemy so the longer stanzas describe the struggle. The structure starts to break down. The rhythm of stanza four, for example, is broken by four shorter lines, while stanza five has only two short lines (lines 42 and 48). The desperate attempt to retreat is expressed in the run of six longer lines (43-48).
• Stanza six is a short, sharp conclusion written as if they are the lines we should remember the Light Brigade by.

Language and Imagery

• The language of the poem is understandably military: guns, soldiers, cannon, sabres and gunners set the scene. The power of the poem, however, comes from the careful use of imagery and sound effects.
• Imagery The strong central image of the "valley of Death" (lines 3,7 and 16) refers to a well-known poem in the bible - Psalm 23 - about the 'valley of the shadow of death'. By using this Biblical allusion, Tennyson shows how important the event is.
• Sound Tennyson uses a wide variety of techniques to provide the poem with highly effective sound effects. Alliteration, for example, is used to express the sounds of battle. Note the sound of bullets in line 22 ("shot and shell").
• The poem has a strong rhythm. For example "half a league, half a league" two light beats followed by a heavy beat expresses the sound of the horses galloping.
• In the video below Sheila Parry talks about the language Tennyson uses in The Charge of the Light Brigade.

Attitudes, themes and ideas

• Tennyson's job as poet laureate was to capture the public mood and, given the poem is still so well-known, he certainly did that. But the feelings in the poem can appear to be ambiguous – in other words, can be seen in two different ways.
• How much outrage is there in this poem, though? Part of its success is the way Tennyson recreates the energy of battle – "half a league, half a league". The final stanza does not express any anger at politicians and generals. It does, however, show delight at what they did: "O the wild charge they made!"
• The poem therefore seems to be more concerned with creating national heroes for a nation than mourning the dead soldiers or arguing against the war.

Comparison

• Mametz Wood – this poem is also about remembering soldiers who have died in war but it is the opposite both in its tone and its treatment of the theme. Tennyson, living at the time of the events he describes, sets out to build a monument to them in poetry so their "glory" will never "fade". Sheers is living long after the event. There is no glory here. Instead he sets out to create a small hymn so the fallen soldiers will be remembered for their own brave deeds in battle.
• Bayonet Charge – this poem is linked by subject matter: a soldier charging in battle. The treatment, however, is different. Tennyson creates a rich impression of the whole action from a kind of widescreen perspective (a brigade charging down a long valley). Hughes is much closer to the action he describes. He focuses on the experience of one man. So instead of exploring the impact of a military action on a nation, Hughes analyses the emotional response of an individual within a nation's war.

Sample question

• Whatever grade you are working towards, the basic structure of any answer will be the same:
• The introduction will explain the relevance of the question to what feelings the poem expresses and an overview of the story the poem tells.
• Paragraph that covers form.
• Paragraph that covers structure.
• Paragraph that covers language (sound and verbal imagery).
• Conclusion: You then conclude on the meaning that emerges from this.
• For each point, you need to provide evidence (a quote or reference) and an explanation.

Questions and Answers

• How does the poet present the experience of conflict in The Charge of the Light Brigade?
• Tennyson presents the experience of conflict in several different ways.
• He uses the form of the poem to illustrate both the battlefield he describes (the long, narrow valley) and the memorials he wants built to honour those who took part (six stanzas like memorial stones to the 600).
• The structure of the story he tells presents the excitement of the battle: the stanzas get longer and the rhymes more frequent after the calm opening stanza.
• He uses rhythm to recreate the sound of the horses charging and repetition to recreate the sound and visual effects of battle ("cannon"lines 17-20 and "flash'd" lines 27-28 for example).
• He gives important lines the heavy "-erd" rhyme to emphasise his anger: "Someone had blunder'd".
• Finally, he builds to a conclusion, in the final stanza, that suggests that the outcome of this experience is positive: the world wonders, but not as in asking a question such as 'why was the blunder made?' but wonders in awe at the bravery of the British.
• Tennyson shows that from this disaster national heroes have been born.