The charge of the light brigade

Adapted fromhttp://www.shmoop.com/charge-of-light-brigade-poem/analysis.html

Symbolism, Imagery and Wordplay

Valley of Death - setting, associations?

Jaws of Death – death turned into a kind of character, ready to gobble them up! “D” is capitalized!Play with ways of saying …However, a few soldiers have escaped the jaws …

DEATH

VALLEY

Symbolism, Imagery and Wordplay

Mouth of Hell – again, Why?The Light ? Brigade - different to heavy cavalry

It´s a mass! Connotation?The Guns – challenge of war and heroic deedsSabres – symbol of the power of the British Army

Musicality and context

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Form and Meter: Rhyme pattern

• "Forward, the Light Brigade!" (A)Was there a man dismayed? (A)Not though the soldier knew (B)Someone had blundered. (C)Theirs not to make reply, (D)Theirs not to reason why, (D)Theirs but to do and die. (D)Into the valley of Death (E)Rode the six hundred. (C)

* Rhyming Couplet at the beginning

Form and Meter: Stressed and unstressed syllables

"Forward, the | Light Brigade!" Was there a | man dismayed?Not though the | soldier knew Someone had | blundered. Theirs not to | make reply, Theirs not to | reason why, Theirs but to | do and die.

Form and Meter: “Feet”

Try saying that first line out loud: "For-ward, the / Light Bri-gade!"

DUM dada DUM dada!

Those little groups of syllables between the slashes are called "feet" …

Form and Meter: “Feet”

• When the feet look like this – with a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables – we call that a dactyl. When there are two feet per line, that's called dimeter. So the full, fancy English teacher name for the rhythm of this poem is dactylic dimeter.

Lyric Speaker

Who is telling the story and what is the poem´s motif?

Setting and ContextWhere It All Goes DownThe poem is based on an actual historical event: the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava (which happened during the Crimean War). This went down in Crimea in 1854.Here's the quick and dirty version of the history: The Crimean War, which took place between 1853 and 1856. This was essentially a battle between Britain (with its allies) and Russia for control over the territory occupied by the crumbling Ottoman Empire. In late 1854, the allied troops tried to capture the Russian city of Sebastopol, and the Battle of Balaclava was one of several fights in that campaign. During this battle, the British commanders ordered a disastrous charge by the Light Brigade, which took many casualties. That's the basic story.

The title

A "brigade" is group of soldiers. They're called "Light" to separate them from the "Heavy

Brigade," another kind of cavalry unit at the time.