Power And Conflict Poetry - The Charge Of The Light Brigade Flashcards
Who wrote The Charge of The Light Brigade?
Alfred Lord Tennyson
What is the big idea?
Tennyson explores the idea of the wasted lives of the soldiers at the mercy of the privileged leadership and power but also celebrates the bravery and heroism of the soldiers who fought
The poem suggests that heroes have been made from the conflict and bravery and strength of the soldiers is evident by escaping the clutches of death
What is the structure?
Narrative poem
Half a league, half a league,
How far the journey is
Not up to challenge ahead
Double meaning
valley of Death
Biblical reference - connotation of hell - horror that they now face
Metaphorically foreboding
Repeated to build tension
Rode the six hundred
Repeated to emphasise loss of life
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Objectifies them with repetition
Symbol not men
Tone of impending doom
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
War and conflict imagery and how the odds are against them
Repetition indicates scale
Shot and shell
Sibilance
Rhythm
Horse
Into the jaws of Death
Personification exaggerates bravery and how boldly they are going to die
Vivid metaphors
Flash’s all their sabres bare
Metaphor for glory which is short
All the world wonder’d
Stark reality
Hyperbole exaggerates mistake
Shatter’d and sunder’d
Consonance emphasises devastation
Not the six hundred
Change in tone
