Charge of the Light Brigade

¶ … Charge of the Light Brigade

We often hear that art reflects life and Lord Alfred Tennyson's poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," demonstrates how art reflects and influences life. The poem is Tennyson's reaction to the news that several hundred British soldiers marched to their deaths under a command that was at best confusing. The poem is interesting in that it is a ballad about the charge that turned actually turned into an inspirational piece for remaining soldiers. In six stanzas, Tennyson relives the soldiers' experience and forces us to face the consequences of misunderstandings. Through poetic form, Tennyson extols the hundreds of soldiers and mourns their deaths. The poem is powerful in its delivery and Literary techniques are significant to the poem. Imagery plays an important role as well as repetition. Tennyson wastes no time expressing the danger that the soldiers marched into by referring to it as the "valley of Death" (Tennyson 3). As they march, they are surrounded by canons to the "right of them / Canon to the left of them, / Canon in front of them" (17-9). They are walking into the "mouth of hell" (25), plunging into the "battery smoke" (31) and they "reeled from the saber stroke / Shattered and sundered" (35-6). Perhaps the most striking image in the poem is the fact that not all of the soldiers returned. The number of soldiers that walk into danger is repeated in every stanza as to remind the reader of the enormity of this charge. We see these men walk into danger and face it even though they know they are outnumbered. Other images that are repeated include "Half a league" (1), the images of the canons, and the valley or jaws of death. These techniques make the poem seem more real because they do not let us forget the meaning of the poem.

Another significant aspect of the poem is its rhyme and rhythm. The stanzas rhyme and the poem is indeed a ballad. While it may seem odd that a ballad talks about death, we can also conclude that Tennyson's poem is a ballad for those whose lives were lost. Tennyson also addresses the fact that "Someone had blundered" (11), in an attempt to make sense of the incident. This aspect of the poem is its best quality because it remembers the soldiers as noble for carrying out their orders even in the face of outrageous and obvious danger. Tennyson writes, "Theirs not to make reply, / Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die" (12-4). Henderson notes that in this poem, Tennyson identifies with the "disaster and triumphs, the suffering and the heroism of the troops" (Henderson 112). Henderson states that the poem was not only distributed among the soldiers on the field, it was also distributed among thousands of wounded soldiers in hospitals. The chaplain at the military hospital in Scutari wrote that the patients were "singing it and all want to have it in black and white, so as to read what has so taken them" (112). Francis O'Gorman notes that Tennyson focuses on "vivid male action, on movement and pace . . . finding heroism amid what it constructs as dreadful failure" (O'Gorman 166). O'Gorman is careful to point out that the poem is "careful to accept error but not to be specific about blame" (166). This poem illustrates the power of the written word in that we see how powerful it can be. Men were moved to a better place because of this poem and others were brought to understanding.