Alfred Lord Tennyson and The Charge of the Light Brigade

Alfred Lord Tennyson

What is so captivating about this poem is that it describes an event that really happened.  The Charge of the Light Brigade was an instance of history, taken from the accounts of the Crimean War.  The story is just as gripping in historical accounts which by their nature concern themselves with facts and not with artistic devices like meter and rhyme.  Tennyson took the bald historical facts and actually weights them with meter and rhyme and produced, in less than 300 words, nearly as complete an account of the battle as any historian.   

I think that what so grips the reader is not so much Tennyson’s skill with words, especially not his employment of rhyme and meter and so forth, but that the story the poem relates is so fascinating to men and women who, though familiar with war, have never seen actual combat; who, though cognizant of the concept of bravery and courage under fire, have never witnessed actual courage in the life and death struggle that is combat; who, though fully appreciative of how bad an effect poor leadership or an untimely mistake can have on an army, nevertheless have never seen that effect played out before their very eyes.  Through Tennyson’s poem, they are almost able to do and to see these things.

The poem is so arresting because it tells of a disaster that never should have happened—that, really, wasn’t even possible; for Britain was the world’s superpower.  But this little skirmish with the Ottomans on the Crimean peninsula was the British equivalent of our Korean and Vietnam wars rolled into one.  Upon hearing the news of the battle, all of Britain was set to wondering, ‘What does this mean for the empire.’  Tennyson’s poem captured the spirit of this sudden soul searching.

Finally, Tennyson’s poem opens a door into the terrible yet fascinating life of a combat soldier.  One of the first things he makes clear is that it is a place called the “valley of Death” where a soldier does his work.  (Greenblatt, 1188)  Then his whole second stanza underscores what everyone knows, that the soldier must follow orders—even bad orders.  The drama opened up here is that we can see, as the soldiers did, the catastrophe that awaits them.  The reader cannot help but be gripped by the awesomeness of the battle, which Tennyson captures in so few words, cannon to the left, right and center, the ground echoing with the thunder of shot and shell.  We see the riders rushing “Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell,” (Greenblatt, 1188) and we want to pull them back.  Perhaps we even scream at the top of our mind’s voice for them to turn back.  But they are soldiers.  The line about “All the world wonder'd,” captures the essence of this fascination with these brave men and the impossible task before them.  Then, miracle of miracles, some of them actually broke through enemy’s lines!  But their lines were “Shatter'd & sunder'd.”  Ultimately, what Tennyson did with his poem was something the newspaper accounts of the story could not do.  Nor could the historians do it.  Tennyson made the men heroes.  You see it in the words “While horse & hero fell, They that had fought so well,” and “When can their glory fade?” and again with the “Noble six hundred!” (Greenblatt, 1188)  He made it matter more that the men were brave beyond brave than that Her Majesty’s mission had completely failed.

The Charge Of The Light Brigade
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

(Memorializing Events in the Battle of Balaclava, October 25, 1854.  Written 1854)

Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter'd & sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

Works Cited.

Greenblatt, Stephen and M.H. Abrams.  Eds.   The Norton Anthology to English Literature.  8^th Ed., Vol. 2.  New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.