Form
This poem is comprised of six numbered stanzas varying
in length from six to twelve lines. Each line is in dimeter, which
means it has two stressed syllables; moreover, each stressed syllable
is followed by two unstressed syllables, making the rhythm dactylic.
The use of “falling” rhythm, in which the stress is on the first
beat of each metrical unit, and then “falls off” for the rest of
the length of the meter, is appropriate in a poem about the devastating
fall of the British brigade.
The rhyme scheme varies with each stanza. Often, Tennyson
uses the same rhyme (and occasionally even the same final word)
for several consecutive lines: “Flashed all their sabres bare /
Flashed as they turned in air / Sab’ring the gunners there.” The
poem also makes use of anaphora, in which the same word is repeated
at the beginning of several consecutive lines: “Cannon to right
of them / Cannon to left of them / Cannon in front of them.” Here
the method creates a sense of unrelenting assault; at each line
our eyes meet the word “cannon,” just as the soldiers meet their
flying shells at each turn.
Commentary
“The Charge of the Light Brigade” recalls a disastrous
historical military engagement that took place during the initial
phase of the Crimean War fought between Turkey and Russia (1854-56).
Under the command of Lord Raglan, British forces entered the war
in September 1854 to
prevent the Russians from obtaining control of the important sea
routes through the Dardanelles. From the beginning, the war was
plagued by a series of misunderstandings and tactical blunders,
one of which serves as the subject of this poem: on October 25, 1854,
as the Russians were seizing guns from British soldiers, Lord Raglan
sent desperate orders to his Light Cavalry Brigade to fend off the
Russians. Finally, one of his orders was acted upon, and the brigade
began charging—but in the wrong direction! Over 650 men
rushed forward, and well over 100 died
within the next few minutes. As a result of the battle, Britain
lost possession of the majority of its forward defenses and the only
metaled road in the area.
In the 21st
century, the British involvement in the Crimean War is dismissed
as an instance of military incompetence; we remember it only for
the heroism displayed in it by Florence Nightingale, the famous nurse.
However, for Tennyson and most of his contemporaries, the war seemed
necessary and just. He wrote this poem as a celebration of the heroic
soldiers in the Light Brigade who fell in service to their commander and
their cause. The poem glorifies war and courage, even in cases of
complete inefficiency and waste.
Unlike the medieval and mythical subject of “The Lady
of Shalott” or the deeply personal grief of “Tears, Idle
Tears,” this poem instead deals with an important political
development in Tennyson’s day. As such, it is part of a sequence
of political and military poems that Tennyson wrote after he became
Poet Laureate of England in 1850,
including “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington” (1852)
and “Riflemen, Form” (1859).
These poems reflect Tennyson’s emerging national consciousness and
his sense of compulsion to express his political views.
This poem is effective largely because of the way it conveys
the movement and sound of the charge via a strong, repetitive falling
meter: “Half a league, half a league / Half a league onward.” The
plodding pace of the repetitions seems to subsume all individual
impulsiveness in ponderous collective action. The poem does not
speak of individual troops but rather of “the six hundred” and then
“all that was left of them.” Even Lord Raglan, who played such an
important role in the battle, is only vaguely referred to in the
line “someone had blundered.” Interestingly, Tennyson omitted this
critical and somewhat subversive line in the 1855 version
of this poem, but the writer John Ruskin later convinced him to
restore it for the sake of the poem’s artistry. Although it underwent
several revisions following its initial publication in 1854,
the poem as it stands today is a moving tribute to courage and heroism
in the face of devastating defeat.
