Charge Of The Light Brigade Flashcards
What type of poem is this?
an EPIC poem: event
“Into the valley of Death”
Foreshadowing, symbolism (death)
Link to propaganda: soldiers as zombies - do as they’re told and just charged to their ‘death’s.
Valley - inescapable and vast, symbol of death
People “knew” it was a blunder that led to certain “death” - (subtle criticism)
“Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die”
Anaphora
(Reply) - verb
Soldiers do as theyre told, stfu and do it - no voice of soldiers in poem too
Soldiers were detached from themsleves - like robots that just did as theyre told
Where is the VOLTA?
“While horse and hero fell,” (juxtaposition)
“While horse and hero fell,”
Volta, juxtaposition
Euphemism
“Fall”ing rhythm of dacytilic dimeter”
His job as laureate was to avoid presenting the reality of battle
Context points:
Lord Raglon (leader of the time)
- ‘Someone had blundered’ - the first newspaper that publicised it said ‘some hideous blunder’
- The first newspaper (the times) that publicised it also said: “causeless as the sacrifice was, it was most glorious”
- writer of poem (tennyson) became poet laureate which meant that he had to write in PRAISE of army to keep his job etc.
- tennyson read about the charge on the 2nd of December 1854 (The Times), and published the poem on the 9th of December - therefore it was written as propaganda to build public support for the war (even though it felt like a defeat as 25,000 men died during the Crimean War)
- patriotic poem - celebrating victorian drive to expand empire
- christian / biblical allusions
“The Valley of Death”
Religious audience so allusion done purposefully: Link to Psalm 23 “though I walk through thr valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me”
God on our side - therefore it may not be luck that cavalry survived.
The Russian cannons were infront and on the sides of the cavalry (surrounded, entrapment)
Making this charge quite suicidal ^
Tennyson tries to make this “blunder” seem as a consequence of war, rather than incompetence (laureate link)
Evidence of tennyson criticism of war/individuals
“Someone has BLUNDERED” - you sorta trip over this word and the rhyme scheme breaks as this word is a “blunder”. Criticism of lord raglan but not mentioned his name
Under the surface - uses rhyme etc to critice this war
Has to keep his job tbf
“Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them,”
Shows overwhelming force of the Russians through grammatical choice - removes definitive article “the” (cannon to THE right of the)
RHYTHM - no break in the rhythm - allows every syllable to be stressed, mimicking sound of galloping of horses
Idea of entrapment ^
Anaphora
What are the verses written in?
Dactyls (three syllables, only the first of which is stressed) - symbolism of heroism
“Forward the light brigade!
Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho the soldier knew…”
Modern reading would stress only the last syllables
Dum da da Dum da da
Irony of poem - celebrating great men but their death was utterly pointless.
Paragraph about dacytlic rhyme
Astonishingly, Tennyson recorded himself reading his poem in the 80s (this can be found on the internet). Although he appears to follow the stresses of the dactyls, he deviated from it dramatically on “knew”. This reinforces the likelihood that he wants to criticise the “blunder”. He can’t do this explicitly in a patriotic poem which celebrates the British military, but a reader attuned to sound would certsinly spot the lack of harmony (discord), where the dactyl rhythm is deliberstely disrupted.
Paragraph about “cannon to left/right/infront”
Tennyson plays with sound in other ways. He used anaphora to describe the surrounding cannons, “Cannons to right of them / Cannon to left of them / Cannon in front of them.” The repetition at the beginning of the line suggests the number of cannons was overwhelming, but also that they are inescapable, which also suggets the light brigade would’ve been lucky to survive. This idea of luck is contrasted with the “valley of death” as the Psalm 23 essentislly states thst “in thr valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for though art with me” - therefore proving to the religious audience that God was on their side too. This in turn emphasises their bravery and sense of duty, which makes them “noble” in Tennyson’s eyes.
Themes
Patriotism
War
Conflict
Nationalism
