Charge_of_the_Light_Brigade_-_Lord_Tennyson

The poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson is a narrative poem about war, or, more specifically, about the role played in a war by a group of six hundred soldiers, known as the Light Brigade. The poet uses various poetic techniques, such as repetition, enjambments and imagery, to convey to his audience his idea, which is received to be honouring the Light Brigade, many of who died. The following essay will explore the themes presented in the poem, as well as the techniques used to enhance the theme. The essay will also discuss the meanings drawn from the poem by the audience, determining how effective the poet was in conveying these meanings, through his use of language patterns, form and structure, specific words used, the tone and mood, as well as poetic techniques. Lord Tennyson’s poem tells a clearly painted tale. In the first stanza, the first two lines represent a visual projection of vast space, traveled without pause. “Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward,” The poem then continues to introduce to us the “six hundred”, who are heading “into the valley of death” or, battlefield, as it can be interpreted. In the ensuing stanzas, Tennyson explains to his audience abjectly the loyalty of these soldiers, and bravery, as they, while not knowing what was to come, didn’t question but did what they had to, in spite of the likelihood of death. Surrounded by the enemy, from all sides; being shot at and shelled by bombs, the “six hundred” continued to charge “into the jaws of Death,…Into the mouth of Hell” [lines seven and eight, stanza III], which can be interpreted to be their inevitable death in battle. Furthermore, Tennyson not only portrays the intangible dangers faced by the soldiers, but gives a name and identity to it; “Cossack and Russian” [line 8, stanza IV]. In stanzas three to five, Tennyson describes the battle as it begins, climaxes, and ends, giving his audience an idea of what the Light Brigade faced for which its survivors should be honoured. At the concluding of stanza four, Tennyson informs his audience that the army rode off, but not the “six hundred”, who are referred to throughout the poem as a single entity. His meaning of this is made clear in the end of stanza five, where he re-iterates that the soldiers came back, along with the survivors from those six hundred, eliminating the identity of the “six hundred” and spoiling them as a single being. It is clear at the concluding of the poem, that “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is about the role these six hundred soldiers played in a war, and how they should be honoured for their roles. The themes presented in the poem include honour, bravery, loyalty, belonging, death and persistence. To express his themes, Tennyson uses certain words, which clearly portray the themes, as well as techniques such as repetition, rhetorical questions, and imagery in order to drill the themes used clearly into the mind of the audience. The imagery and images used include restructuring of the dangers faced, such as cannons, sabers, guns and bombing by the Russians and Cossacks. Tennyson effectively uses imagery to attack his audiences’ sense of sight and sound, to make the situation more real to the audience. These examples of imagery are evident in stanza three, as, in the first to third line, the object of a cannon is used to portray being trapped by danger, the cannons symbolising the enemy. This is involving the audiences’ sight. The lines immediately after this, attack the sense of hearing, through the use of words such as “thunder’d” and “storm’d”. The poem does not adhere to any particular structure or length. The stanzas vary in length randomly from six to twelve lines, with no particularly obvious reason for why it may be so arbitrary. There are six stanzas, and the events and ideas are presented in chronological order, starting from the soldiers traveling, to them fighting a battle, and then retreating with many losses. The final stanza is not retelling part of the story, but persuading the audience to honour the Light Brigade. The poem uses internal rhyme and end rhyme to create a rhythm in the poem. The iambic meter or rhyme scheme is: abcbddcb ddebfffcb gggbhhchb iiifbjjkjblb gggbhhhchgb ddbddb. The rhythm has an irregular beat, but is generally fast paced. The most common beat is six counts; however, five and seven are also used randomly. The internal rhyme helps to mesh descriptions together, like in the line “volley’d and thunder’d”, enhancing the beat of the poem, and speeding up the pace. When read aloud, the poem travels from even-paced in the first stanza to fast and erratic in stanzas two and three, by use of shorter words and more enjambments. In stanza four, the words get longer, and the pace slows down, but picks up again in stanza five, as the words once again shorten. The final stanza is once more evenly paced. Hence the poem moves from even-paced, to fast and then slow and then fast again, before retreating to even-paced. Tennyson may have chosen this rhyme and rhythm to express his ideas, as the pace augments the issues discussed, becoming faster in the battle scenes, but slower where the battle becomes more personal, allowing the audience pause to ponder the choice of words and events taking place, and being better able to experience the change, before speeding up again to help the audience become attuned to the events of retreat and sudden loss taking place, and then switching to an even pace, so that the conclusion is not too sudden. The style of the poem is in third person, and was sufficiently descriptive to enable the audience to visualise the events as they’re occurring. Tennyson uses third person, and this gives us a window into the overall action, and enables us to see everything as it happens, without any particular point of view. The language used is informal but not colloquial, as words are shortened, and yet no slang is used. This lets us know that the issue is serious, but not beyond our scope of understanding. The two most commonly used poetic techniques were imagery and repetition. Imagery was used in every stanza, but mainly in the fourth stanza; “plunged in the battery-smoke”, “Flash’d all their sabers bare,”, “right through the line they broke;” All of these instances of imagery helped to give the audience a more visual understanding of what was happening in the poem. Repetition was also used often. It reiterated ideas so that the audience was given certain points to remember, and think over. The most frequently repeated line was “the six hundred.” It was at the end of every stanza, and made the audience think of the Light Brigade, not as many men, but one entity: ‘The’ Light Brigade. There were eleven individual uses of repetition, and each one was used to send one message to the audience. The poet used a valley to symbolize death, in the first and second stanzas. It caused an image of a deserted place to appear every time death was mentioned. This shows the audience what the poet thinks of death, as being something lonely and large. Tennyson successfully made his audience see another reason for why they should honour the Light Brigade; so many of them had experienced death, and, in his portrayal, Tennyson makes death seem very final, invoking sympathy for the dead. Lord Tennyson used assonance seven times throughout his poem, and in each place, it served a purpose of increasing the poems pace, causing the audience to become more involved in the poem, and make the events in the poem more significant and real to the audience. Personification was used to give death and hell forms, so that it is more vivid to the audiences’ imagination. In stanza three, line seven and eight, Tennyson gives death jaws, enabling it to ‘eat’ it’s victims, and chew them, and he gave hell a mouth, enabling hell to ‘swallow’ its victims. The use of enjambments was also frequent, most of the lines in stanzas merging into the next, until the end. This allowed a link to exist between the lines in a stanza, enabling ideas to flow together, and allowing more elaboration, as well as the freedom to stop where the poet fancied. Throughout his poem, Tennyson has been working at one main idea. That the Light Brigade should be honoured. He showed the audience, through the use of various poetic techniques, such as repetition, enjambments, personification, symbolism, assonance and imagery, that the Light Brigade, many of who died, deserves to be honoured. He showed that they were brave, admirable and loyal. He showed that they were persistent and worked as one, belonging together, and fighting until the death. Tennyson conveyed the glory they gave others, while they themselves died. I believe that the poem was a very touching one, which successfully conveyed the message it set out to convey, through the use of language patterns, rhyme, rhythm and various poetic techniques. Bibliography - http://poetry.eserver.org/light-brigade.html