The Charge of the Light Brigade Summary & Analysis
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

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The Full Text of “The Charge of the Light Brigade”

I

1Half a league, half a league,

2Half a league onward,

3All in the valley of Death

4   Rode the six hundred.

5“Forward, the Light Brigade!

6Charge for the guns!” he said.

7Into the valley of Death

8   Rode the six hundred.

II

9“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

10Was there a man dismayed?

11Not though the soldier knew

12   Someone had blundered.

13   Theirs not to make reply,

14   Theirs not to reason why,

15   Theirs but to do and die.

16   Into the valley of Death

17   Rode the six hundred.

III

18Cannon to right of them,

19Cannon to left of them,

20Cannon in front of them

21   Volleyed and thundered;

22Stormed at with shot and shell,

23Boldly they rode and well,

24Into the jaws of Death,

25Into the mouth of hell

26   Rode the six hundred.

IV

27Flashed all their sabres bare,

28Flashed as they turned in air

29Sabring the gunners there,

30Charging an army, while

31   All the world wondered.

32Plunged in the battery-smoke

33Right through the line they broke;

34Cossack and Russian

35Reeled from the sabre stroke

36   Shattered and sundered.

37Then they rode back, but not

38   Not the six hundred.

V

39Cannon to right of them,

40Cannon to left of them,

41Cannon behind them

42   Volleyed and thundered;

43Stormed at with shot and shell,

44While horse and hero fell.

45They that had fought so well

46Came through the jaws of Death,

47Back from the mouth of hell,

48All that was left of them,

49   Left of six hundred.

VI

50When can their glory fade?

51O the wild charge they made!

52   All the world wondered.

53Honour the charge they made!

54Honour the Light Brigade,

55   Noble six hundred!

  • “The Charge of the Light Brigade” Introduction

    • “The Charge of the Light Brigade” was written by the English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson in response to a battle during the Crimean War (1853-1855). In this battle, a British cavalry unit—the “Light Brigade”—was commanded to charge against a Russian artillery unit. The order was almost suicidal, and the brigade was decimated in the charge. “The Charge of the Light Brigade” celebrates the self-sacrifice and heroism of the cavalrymen, suggesting that bravery consists of doing one's duty even when it leads to almost certain death.

  • “The Charge of the Light Brigade” Summary

    • 1.

      The six hundred cavalrymen rode for a mile and a half into the valley of Death. “Light Brigade, advance! Charge for the artillery” their commander said. So the six hundred cavalrymen charged into the valley of Death.

      2.

      “Light brigade advance!” the commander said. Was any soldier discouraged or afraid? No—even though they all knew the charge was a mistake. It wasn’t up to them to dispute their orders or to ask why they were given. Their job was simply to act and to die. So the six hundred members of the cavalry charged into the valley of Death.

      3.

      There were cannons on their right, cannons on their left, cannons in front—and they all fired loud blasts. The soldiers were showered with gunshots and artillery shells, but they rode boldly and well into the teeth of death. The six hundred soldiers rode into Hell itself.

      4.

      They raised their swords in the air and their swords flashed in the light. They stabbed the enemy soldiers firing the guns. They charged an entire army—and the whole world watched in amazement and consternation. The cavalrymen dove into the smoke from the guns. They broke through the enemy line. The Russian troops were dazed, cut into pieces, by their swords. Then the cavalrymen rode back—but not all six hundred of them.

      5.

      There were cannons on their right, cannons on their left, cannons behind them—all of them firing loud blasts. They were showered with gunshots and artillery shells, and many of these heroes and their horses were killed—even though they had fought so well, even though they had ridden into the teeth of death and come back, back from Hell itself. That was all that was left of the six hundred riders who set out on the charge.

      6.

      When will their bravery be forgotten? The whole world admired their wild charge! We must respect their charge! And we must respect them, the brave six hundred men of the Light Brigade.

  • “The Charge of the Light Brigade” Themes

    • Theme Bravery, Duty, and Sacrifice

      Bravery, Duty, and Sacrifice

      “The Charge of the Light Brigade” celebrates an act of bravery and sacrifice—a suicidal cavalry charge during the Crimean war. Written just six weeks later, Tennyson’s poem argues that the willingness of the cavalry to sacrifice themselves—without calling their orders into question—makes them heroes. The poem thus suggests that heroism isn’t just about bravery but also about duty: being willing to obey orders no matter the cost.

      As the speaker makes clear, the cavalry’s charge is doomed from the start. They are surrounded by enemy guns, with “cannon to the right of them, / Cannon to the left of them, / Cannon in front of them.” Everywhere the cavalry looks they are “stormed at with shot and shell.” Against these guns, they have only “sabres bare.” In other words, they just have swords—hardly as powerful or intimidating as the big artillery they’re going up against.

      What’s more, in order to capture the guns, the soldiers have to ride all the way up to them—a distance of “half a league” (about a mile and a half). This means they have to ride a long way under artillery fire before they can even engage their enemy. The attack is thus desperate and foolish, and the speaker fittingly describes it with horror. It is, the speaker says, like riding “into the jaws of death / Into the mouth of hell.” In other words, the charge is suicidal.

      The speaker suggests that the cavalry knows that their charge is doomed before they even start—but they do it anyway. The speaker notes “the soldier knew / someone had blundered.” In other words, the order to charge is a mistake, a lapse in judgment—and the “soldier” knows this, even if his commander doesn’t. One might expect the cavalry to object to the order, since it is a “blunder” which will get them all killed. But the speaker notes, none of the soldiers are frightened or discouraged. Instead, the speaker stresses that the cavalrymen respect their place with military hierarchy. It’s not their job to come up with orders, but to execute them: “Theirs not to make reply, / Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die.”

      As the poem celebrates this doomed cavalry charge—and the “hero[es]” who did it—it is thus celebrating two different things at once. On the one hand, the speaker praises the bravery of the cavalrymen, their willingness to ride into a terrifying and horrifying battle. On the other, the speaker celebrates their obedience and commitment to military hierarchy, their willingness to execute an order even if they know it’s a “blunder.” In this way, the poem suggests that heroism consists of both bravery and adherence to duty at once. And it subtly suggests that the blame for this military disaster does not lie with the cavalrymen themselves: they were exemplary soldiers.

      Instead, the blame rests with the commanders who sent them on a suicidal mission. Though Tennyson himself supported the Crimean War, the poem might encourage readers to question the military leaders responsible for such a waste of life. But whether the reader leaves the poem in favor of the war or against it, the poem is more concerned with praising the soldiers themselves: celebrating their sacrifice, their bravery, and their commitment to their country.

  • Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Charge of the Light Brigade”

    • Lines 1-4

      Half a league, half a league,
      Half a league onward,
      All in the valley of Death
         Rode the six hundred.

      The first four lines of “The Charge of the Light Brigade” establish the poem’s form and hint at its broader themes. The poem begins by describing a cavalry charge—six hundred British cavalrymen, the members of the "Light Brigade," ride “half a league” (about a mile and a half) into the “valley of death.” This is an allusion to a real cavalry charge that happened during the Crimean War (1853-1856). During the Battle of Balaclava (1854), a British cavalry regiment charged against a well-fortified Russian artillery position; most of the cavalrymen were killed in the assault. The attack caused an outcry in England—especially because it seemed like the order to charge was given in error, a result of miscommunication between British leaders.

      As the cavalry ride "half a league, half a league," they thus ride toward their deaths. The speaker hints at this by alluding to a passage from the Bible's Psalm 23: “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” The “valley of Death” that the speaker mentions in line 3—and which becomes one of the poem’s refrains—is thus a place of fear and temptation. In the psalm, the speaker’s faith in God protects him or her from the terrors of the “valley of the shadow of death.” The cavalry faces a similarly stark and dire terror as they charge against the enemy artillery. And they withstand this terror, the speaker will eventually argue, through their unusual bravery.

      “The Charge of the Light Brigade” gives its reader an immediate, intimate sense of what this cavalry charge felt like, sounded like. For instance, its meterdactylic dimeter—sounds like the clip-clop of galloping horses (recall that a dactyl consists of an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables; "All in the | valley of ..."). However, the speaker uses a lot of metrical substitutions to convey the chaos of the charge. Indeed, none of the opening four lines of the poem are metrically regular. And though the poem does occasionally use rhyme, it is similarly unpredictable, appearing at key moments in the poem and then disappearing again: none of these opening lines rhyme (though “onward” and “hundred” might be described as a slant rhyme).

      The poem further captures the sound of the galloping horses with its use of epizeuxis, repeating the phrase “half a league” three times in the first line and a half of the poem. Working with the uneven meter, this repetition captures the rhythmic pounding of the light brigade’s horses as they charge the enemy lines.

    • Lines 5-8

      “Forward, the Light Brigade!
      Charge for the guns!” he said.
      Into the valley of Death
         Rode the six hundred.

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    • Lines 9-12

      “Forward, the Light Brigade!”
      Was there a man dismayed?
      Not though the soldier knew
         Someone had blundered.

    • Lines 13-17

         Theirs not to make reply,
         Theirs not to reason why,
         Theirs but to do and die.
         Into the valley of Death
         Rode the six hundred.

    • Lines 18-21

      Cannon to right of them,
      Cannon to left of them,
      Cannon in front of them
         Volleyed and thundered;

    • Lines 22-26

      Stormed at with shot and shell,
      Boldly they rode and well,
      Into the jaws of Death,
      Into the mouth of hell
         Rode the six hundred.

    • Lines 27-31

      Flashed all their sabres bare,
      Flashed as they turned in air
      Sabring the gunners there,
      Charging an army, while
         All the world wondered.

    • Lines 31-36

         All the world wondered.
      Plunged in the battery-smoke
      Right through the line they broke;
      Cossack and Russian
      Reeled from the sabre stroke
         Shattered and sundered.

    • Lines 37-38

      Then they rode back, but not
         Not the six hundred.

    • Lines 39-42

      Cannon to right of them,
      Cannon to left of them,
      Cannon behind them
         Volleyed and thundered;

    • Lines 43-49

      Stormed at with shot and shell,
      While horse and hero fell.
      They that had fought so well
      Came through the jaws of Death,
      Back from the mouth of hell,
      All that was left of them,
         Left of six hundred.

    • Lines 50-55

      When can their glory fade?
      O the wild charge they made!
         All the world wondered.
      Honour the charge they made!
      Honour the Light Brigade,
         Noble six hundred!

  • “The Charge of the Light Brigade” Symbols

    • Symbol Jaws of Death

      Jaws of Death

      In line 24 (and later in line 46), the speaker describes the light brigade riding into the “jaws of Death.” This isn’t literally true—death doesn’t actually have jaws! Rather, it’s a metaphor and a symbol wrapped up together. The metaphor compares death to a ravenous, hungry creature with terrifying jaws that threaten to tear apart the six hundred members of the light brigade. More broadly, the “jaws of Death” serve as a symbol for the battlefield itself—perhaps even for the horrors of war on the whole. They present the battlefield as a terrifying place where death is almost inevitable. In doing so, this symbol emphasizes the bravery of the six hundred: they know that they are riding to their deaths, but they do it anyway. The symbol thus stresses the danger and terror that surrounds the light brigade’s charge—but it also emphasizes their bravery in confronting that danger.

  • “The Charge of the Light Brigade” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

    • End-Stopped Line

      “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is a strongly end-stopped poem. These end-stops convey the resolve and bravery of the light brigade as it faces death in its suicidal charge. They also convey the strength of the poet’s belief in these soldiers. For instance, lines 13-15 are all strongly end-stopped:

      Theirs not to make reply,
      Theirs not to reason why,
      Theirs but to do and die.

      These lines describe the light brigade’s response to its orders. Even though those orders are evidently a “blunder,” the soldiers don’t dispute them. They simply follow orders and grimly do their duty. The strong end-stops in these lines convey the determination of the cavalrymen, their unwillingness to entertain doubt: like the cavalrymen themselves, these lines are strong, confident, and unequivocal.

      That confidence reappears in the final stanza of the poem (lines 50-55), which is entirely end-stopped. In this stanza, the speaker discusses how the light brigade will be remembered:

      When can their glory fade?
      O the wild charge they made!
      All the world wondered.

      The speaker is confident that the light brigade will always be remembered, that its glory will never fade. And that confidence is reflected in the strongly end-stopped lines. There is no room for doubt in these powerful and direct lines. The use of end-stop in the poem thus reflects its fundamental concern: it helps the speaker describe the bravery of the light brigade and to convey his confidence that they have won immortal glory through their sacrifice.

    • Enjambment

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    • Caesura

    • Alliteration

    • Assonance

    • Consonance

    • Allusion

    • Repetition

    • Metaphor

  • “The Charge of the Light Brigade” Vocabulary

    Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

    • League
    • Light Brigade
    • Dismayed
    • Blundered
    • Volleyed
    • Shell
    • Flashed
    • Sabres
    • Plunged
    • Battery-smoke
    • Cossack
    • Reeled
    • Sundered
    League
    • A distance of about half a mile.

  • Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Charge of the Light Brigade”

    • Form

      “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is made up of six stanzas of varying lengths, marked by Roman numerals. Each stanza is like a little chapter in the story of the Light Brigade and its doomed mission, though the language throughout the poem is very repetitive. The speaker relies on refrains, anaphora, and parallelism to give the poem a sense of cohesion and structure even as it does not follow a set form (such as the sonnet or the villanelle).

      At the same time, though, the lack of a clear form balances out this intense repetition, keeping the poem from becoming too steady or predictable. Rhymes come and go; the stanzas are often radically different lengths. The first stanza, for instance, is eight lines long, but the next is nine. The fourth stanza, meanwhile, has twelve lines, and the final stanza has only six. As a result, the stanzas feel uneven, contracting and expanding unpredictably.

      The same is true of the lines themselves. Though most of them are around six syllables, some are indented and some aren’t. And there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to which lines are indented and which aren’t. For example, in the first three stanzas of the poem, the fourth line of each stanza is indented (lines 4, 12, and 21). But in the fourth stanza, line 30 isn’t indented. The poem once again feels uneven, unpredictable, even chaotic. This chaos isn’t random or unplanned. Rather, the speaker uses it to imitate the chaos of battle itself. The poem feels like a cavalry charge, with all its dissonant sounds and uneven rhythms. In other words, the lack of a set form is part of the point: it helps the poem capture the way the light brigade’s charge felt and sounded.

    • Meter

      “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is written in dactylic dimeter. Dactyls are poetic feet with a DUM da da rhythm, and dimeter means there are two such feet in each line. It's easy to hear this rhythm in lines 18-20:

      Cannon to | right of them,
      Cannon to | left of them,
      Cannon in | front of them

      This is a pretty unusual meter. Most English poets favor meters with only two syllables in each foot—iambic or trochaic meters. They tend to use three-syllable feet—things like dactyls, amphibrachs, and anapests—only as metrical variations, as ways to switch up those more standard meters. For one thing, it’s hard to write a poem in dactyls. Few people have done it. But Tennyson chose this meter for a specific and important reason: it sounds like galloping horses. The meter captures the syncopated “clip-clop” of a cavalry charge, as hundreds of horses race toward a target. The poem thus imitates the sound of the charge it describes: it becomes an echo of the charge of the light brigade.

      The meter is definitely not perfect, though. As might be expected for a poem that describes a chaotic and ultimately disastrous cavalry charge, it contains moments of irregularity. One of those moments appears in line 3:

      All in the | valley of | death.

      The line is seven syllables long, instead of the six one would normally expect in a line of dactylic dimeter. And the last syllable—the word “death”—is stressed. So it feels like the start of a new foot altogether. (This is called a “masculine ending”). This is an important metrical variation because this line—with some slight variations becomes one of the poem’s refrains, reappearing as line 7 and 16. It’s striking that the speaker would use a line that doesn’t quite follow the poem’s meter as one of its refrains. It suggests that metrical variation is not a problem but part of the point: it reflects the chaotic, disordered event the poem describes. This applies to the poem's other metrical variations as well. The poem uses such variations to capture the chaotic sounds of a disastrous charge.

    • Rhyme Scheme

      “The Charge of the Light Brigade” does not have a set rhyme scheme, but it does use rhyme often. The poem thus feels a bit uneven, even chaotic—with rhymes appearing suddenly and disappearing just as suddenly. This is intentional. The speaker uses rhyme in this chaotic way to capture the chaos of the cavalry charge the poem describes. Like the charge, the poem is cacophonous and disorganized.

      But the speaker is also careful and intention about where and when rhyme appears. Though the poem sounds chaotic, it often uses its rhymes to create strong connections between important moments and ideas. Note, for instance, the rhyme between “hundred” in line 4 and “said” in line 6. It's a subtle rhyme, given that it depends on the unaccented part of "hundred," but nevertheless quietly strengthens the connection between the two lines: the “six hundred” ride into the “valley of death” because “he said” to do so—because their commander ordered them to do so. The rhyme creates a link between the command and its consequence, the order and its effect. And, coming in the poem’s first stanza, it creates an expectation: readers might expect that the fourth and sixth lines of the next stanza will also rhyme.

      But they don’t. Line 12 ends with the word “blundered”; line 15 with the word “why.” These words don't rhyme at all. The speaker introduces rhyme in a different place in this stanza, now rhyming lines 13-16, the fifth-seventh lines of the stanza. These lines deal with the cavalrymen’s duty—“to do and die”—so it makes sense that the lines would be linked together through rhyme. The speaker thus uses rhyme with purpose and intent—underscoring important connections—but the rhymes themselves never settle into a predictable set scheme. Instead, in their unpredictable appearances and disappearances, they mimic the chaos of the battle they describe.

  • “The Charge of the Light Brigade” Speaker

    • The speaker of “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is anonymous, the reader never learning his or her gender, profession, class, etc. The poem is almost entirely devoid of personal details or any kind of revealing hints that would offer tantalizing clues about the speaker’s life. Indeed, the only thing one can say about the speaker with any confidence is that he or she supports England in the Crimean War: the speaker seems patriotic, even nationalistic, in his or her praise of the valor and bravery of the British cavalry.

      The absence of meaningful details about the speaker is intentional and important. This poem is not about its speaker. It is about the “Light Brigade” and its bravery as it faces certain death charging against a Russian artillery position. The speaker describes the charge with precise details: it almost feels like the speaker was present for it, observed it. However, the speaker makes it clear that he or she was not a member of the Light Brigade. The speaker refers to them as a separate group of people. For instance, in lines 13-15, he uses the word “their” rather than “our” to describe their obedience to their military superiors: “Theirs not to make reply…” The speaker thus removes him or herself from the poem in order to better focus on the cavalrymen: their bravery and heroism facing death.

  • “The Charge of the Light Brigade” Setting

    • “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is set on a battlefield in the Crimean War (1853-56). It describes a real cavalry charge that happened during the Battle of Balaclava on October 25, 1854—a charge that ended in disaster, with most of the British cavalry killed in action.

      The poem vividly describes the environment of the battle: the gunshots and artillery shells that rain down on the soldiers as they charge, the smoke of the guns, the swords flashing in the air. As a result, the reader gets a vivid sense of the battle: the way it looked, smelled, and sounded. It almost feels like the speaker is present at the battle, listening to the horses' hooves, smelling the smoke from the cannons.

      Yet the speaker of the poem is careful to distinguish him or herself from the cavalry: the speaker is not a member of the "light brigade." Instead, the speaker is reflecting on the charge after the fact—as a military disaster, as an instance of exceptional bravery, and as an occasion to reflect on the handling of the Crimean War more broadly. The immediacy with which the speaker describes the battle is thus a little bit deceiving: the poem is distant enough from the events it describes to allow for reflection—and critique.

  • Literary and Historical Context of “The Charge of the Light Brigade”

      Literary Context

      When he wrote “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Alfred Lord Tennyson was the English poet laureate—a position of power and prestige in British society. For both his contemporaries and modern readers, Tennyson was/is thus considered the preeminent Victorian poet—the poet who most embodies the virtues and vices of his own literary moment.

      The Victorian period lasted from 1837 to 1901, the reign of the British Queen Victoria. These years were the peak of Britain’s political and economic power. At its height, the British Empire stretched around the globe; England was the financial center of the global economy. It was also a socially conservative time, with strict gender roles and hardening limits on sexuality.

      Tennyson’s poetry reflects the social and political dynamics of his moment. It is itself conservative, looking backward to historical forms and traditions rather than developing new ways of writing. And it is often in allegiance with the power structure in the country. (Tennyson was, for instance, a vocal supporter of the Crimean War—even as “The Charge of the Light Brigade” may raise some implicit questions about the handling of the war). Unlike many of the poets who followed him, Tennyson was interested in preserving and upholding the society in which he lived—rather than searching for ways to criticize it.

      Historical Context

      “The Charge of the Light Brigade” was written in the fall of 1854 and published just six weeks after the event it describes, a disastrous cavalry charge during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War. When an English cavalry division charged a well-fortified Russian artillery position, almost all of the cavalrymen were killed; the Russians suffered few casualties. Though historians disagree about who, exactly, was responsible for this disaster, it seems that there was miscommunication and the brigade received the wrong orders. The event thus triggered a vigorous debate in Britain about the Crimean War itself, and the way that the military leadership was conducting it.

      The Crimean War was fought between 1853-56. The Russian Empire faced off against an alliance consisting of the Ottoman Empire, Britain, and the Italian Kingdom of Sardinia. The causes of the war are complex, but at its heart, it was an attempt by Britain and France to keep Russia from gaining power in the Balkans and the Middle East. It was largely fought in the Balkans but quickly became the subject of considerable controversy in England and France—though, eventually, the Russian army sued for peace in 1856. It was one of the first conflicts in which modern military technologies—like exploding artillery shells—were used, resulting in unprecedented carnage.

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