Alfred Lord Tennyson's The Charge Of The Light Brigade

Alfred, Lord Tennyson(1809-1892) was Queen Victoria’s poet laureate and his lasting works include “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, “The Lady Shalott”, and “Idylls of the king.'' Tennyson's poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” was written in 1854. Literature at the time was heavily dominated by Victorian literature and British authors. “The Charge of the Light Brigade” tells the story of a light cavalry brigade fighting in the Battle of Balaclava during the Siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War. The war involved France, Great Britain, Sardinia-Piedmont, and the Ottoman Empire against the Russian Empire between the years 1853-1856 and was fought on the Crimean peninsula. The war is known today for its tragic mismanagement, with disease and

The first three stanzas which involve the light brigade's approach to enemy lines have a strong structure. In the fourth and fifth stanzas, the structure established by the first three stanzas changes as the light brigade engages the enemy in battle. Tennyson does this to describe the steadiness of the charge and the chaos of its resulting battle. The two light beats and the one heavy beat of the lines “half a league, half a league/half a league onward,” are used to create the sound of the galloping horses of the light brigade. In the same two opening lines Tennyson uses imagery with the words “half a league, half a league” to create sense of the distance the men of the light brigade must charge to reach enemy lines. In the next two lines (“All in the valley of Death/ Rode the six hundred”[3,4]) Tennyson uses Death as a proper noun to give the word more purpose and meaning. The first of the two lines is a metaphor in that Tennyson compares the field the light brigade is charging across to a valley of Death. The line “Rode the six hundred” is the first instance of this being used in the poem and it will be repeated throughout the poem. In the next two lines (“Forward the light brigade!/Charge for the guns! 'He said'”[5,6]) Tennyson uses assonance with the repetition of the “a” sound with the words “Forward” and “Charge” to put emphasis on what the light brigade is currently doing. The last

Tennyson does this to show that the light brigade is retreating. The next four lines of the poem(“While horse and hero fell./They that had fought so well/ Came through the jaws of Death,/Back from the mouth of Hell,”[46-50]) are used to show that thought their charge was valiant the light brigade was still forced to withdraw. The irregular rhyme scheme is continued and the metaphors and personifications found earlier in the poem return to show that the charge is over. The last two lines of the stanza(“All that was left of them,/Left of six hundred”[51,52]) show Tennyson's distress over the deaths of during the