The Charge of the Light Brigade (poem)

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"Valley of the Shadow of Death", as photographed by Roger Fenton in 1855. The photograph shows a ravine on the Balaklava Plain filled with spent cannonballs.

The Charge of the Light Brigade is an 1854 narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson about the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War.

1 Overview
2 Kipling's postscript
3 In popular culture
4 Media
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Overview

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Tennyson's poem, published December 9, 1854 in The Examiner, praises the Brigade, "When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made!", while mourning the appalling futility of the charge: "Not tho' the soldier knew, someone had blunder'd… Charging an army, while all the world wonder'd." Tennyson wrote the poem inside only a few minutes after reading an account of the battle in The Times, according to his grandson Sir Charles Tennyson. It immediately became hugely popular, even reaching the troops in the Crimean, where it was distributed in pamphlet form.

Each stanza tells a different part of the story, and there is a delicate balance between nobility and brutality throughout. Although Tennyson's subject is the nobleness of supporting one's country, and the poem's tone and hoofbeat cadences are rousing, it pulls no punches about the horror of war: "cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon in front of them, volley'd and thunder'd". With "into the valley of Death" Tennyson works in resonance with "the shadow of the valley of Death" from Psalm 23; then and now, it is often read at funerals. Tennyson's Crimea does not offer the abstract tranquil death of the psalm but is instead predatory and menacing: "into the jaws of Death" and "into the mouth of Hell". The alliterative "Storm'd at with shot and shell" echoes the whistling of ball as the cavalry charge through it. After the fury of the charge, the final notes are gentle, reflective and laden with sorrow: "Then they rode back, but not Not the six hundred".

Tennyson recited this poem onto a wax cylinder in 1890 (see below). Jamie Renell and various volunteers at Librivox have also made recordings of the poem. All of them are available online.^[1]^[2]

[edit] Kipling's postscript

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The Last of the Light Brigade

Some forty years after the appearance of The Charge of the Light Brigade, in 1891, Rudyard Kipling's poem The Last of the Light Brigade focuses on the terrible hardships faced in old age by veterans of the Crimean War, as exemplified by the cavalry men of the Light Brigade, in attempt to shame the British public into offering financial assistance.

[edit] In popular culture

In the television show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air the poem is dramatically read by the butler, Geoffrey Butler.
The sixth season episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, entitled Sacrifice of Angels, featured two main characters, Chief O'Brien and Dr. Bashir, reciting the third stanza before going into a battle against The Dominion.
The cult British comedy radio panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue featured the poem sung to the tune of the song My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music.
NWOBHM band Iron Maiden's song The Trooper from the album Piece of Mind is heavily inspired by Tennyson's poem.