THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

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
Someone had blunder’d: VOCABULARIES
Their’s not to make reply,
1. League - an old way to measure distance-. It
Their’s not to reason why, is equal to 3 miles.
Their’s but to do and die: 2. Blundered = made stupid and and clumsy
Into the valley of Death mistake
Rode the six hundred. 3. charge - attack
4. brigade - an army unit or a division.
Cannon to right of them,
5. valley - the low ground between hills or
Cannon to left of them, Mountains
Cannon in front of them 6. Dismay - terror/ consternation
Volley’d and thunder’d; 7. cannon - a weapon that shoots large
metallic balls
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
8. volley - repeating firing
Boldly they rode and well, 9. storm - attack
Into the jaws of Death, 10.Cavalry - horse soldiers, an army division
Into the mouth of Hell of soldiers on horseback.
11. boldly - bravely
Rode the six hundred.
STANZA 1
THE LINES
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.
STANZA 2
THE LINES
Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
MEANING
The cavalry moved a mile a half in a single move.
It suggest that the cavalry soldiers mightt lose their life in the
battle. The battle was like The Valley Of Death.
- They could not escape from death. The Russian gunmen
were at the head of the valley looking down at them.
There were six hundred people and they were riding
probably horseback
Due to miscommunication, the commanding officer ordered
the Light Brigade to move forward on a frontal assault
against a well prepared artillery battery
The six hundred cavalrymen rode forward although there is
no guarantee that they would come out alive.
MEANING
Repeating command shows that the commanding officer was
determined there was no going back.
The commanding officer asked if any one of them were
dismayed/terror/sadness because they face death
The word ‘not’ implies that these men didn’t feel scared at all.
They were ready to do their job even though the order (to
charge the artillery battery) might be crazy.
The soldiers realised the order was a mistake but they did
what they were told because it was their duty to obey orders.
‘make reply” means they never talked back to the commander
‘Reason why’ means to figure out the point or reason of the
attack.
“do and die’ means they would ride and fight and could
possibly die
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred
STANZA 3
THE LINES
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and 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
These lines are same as the last stanza in stanza 1.
It emphasis that these men were riding to their death
= The light Brigade was ordered to advance into a valley
surrounded by enemy soldiers. They only armed with swords,
whereas the Russian soldiers had guns.
The light Brigade were virtually defenceless. Many of them
died.
MEANING
The soldiers were surrounded by enemy cannon, left, right,
and front.
The repetation of the words “cannon’ sounds like
explosives. The poet made it clear that they were
surrounded by powerful weapons and there was very little
chance of them surviving.
‘volley’ suggest a round of firing.
These huge walls of cannon all around them are firing and
making a sound like thunder.
The soldiers in the Light Brigade were being “stormed at
“ by gunfire.
The ‘shot’(bullets) and ‘shell” (big explosive fired from
cannon) are a violent, noisy, destructive force that reminds
the speaker of a storm.
Boldly means bravely.
They were not scared of the gunfire and rode ‘boldly’ even
though it seemed more and more like a suicide mission.
Now the “valley of death” becomes the “Jaw of death” and
“mouth of hell”. They could not escape.
- The word “six hundred” repetead in each stanza gives
the idea of the large number of men involved. It also create
an image of a chaotic battle.
- “Jaw of death” bring an image of inescapability
- “mouth of hell” bring an image of sheer horror
Summary

First Stanza

The poem tells the story of a brigade consisting of 600 soldiers who rode on horseback into the
“valley of death” for half a league (about one and a half miles). They were obeying a command to
charge the enemy forces that had been seizing their guns.

Not a single soldier was discouraged or distressed by the command to charge forward, even
though all the soldiers realized that their commander had made a terrible mistake: “Someone had
blundered.” The role of the soldier is to obey and “not to make reply...not to reason why,” so they
followed orders and rode into the “valley of death.”

The 600 soldiers were assaulted by the shots of shells of canons in front and on both sides of
them. Still, they rode courageously forward toward their own deaths: “Into the jaws of Death / Into
the mouth of hell / Rode the six hundred.”

The soldiers struck the enemy gunners with their unsheathed swords (“sabres bare”) and
charged at the enemy army while the rest of the world looked on in wonder. They rode into the
artillery smoke and broke through the enemy line, destroying their Cossack and Russian
opponents. Then they rode back from the offensive, but they had lost many men so they were
“not the six hundred” any more.

Canons behind and on both sides of the soldiers now assaulted them with shots and shells. As
the brigade rode “back from the mouth of hell,” soldiers and horses collapsed; few remained to
make the journey back.

The world marvelled at the courage of the soldiers; indeed, their glory is undying: the poem
states these noble 600 men remain worthy of honor and tribute today.

“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 p