Search results
Aug 28, 2024 · Learn about The Charge of the Light Brigade for your AQA GCSE English Literature exam, including analysis of themes, context and comparisons to other poems.
Themes: Bravery and Heroism: The poem celebrates the courage and valour of the Light Brigade as they charged into battle against overwhelming odds. Despite facing certain death, the soldiers obeyed their orders without question, displaying unwavering bravery and loyalty to their country.
Theme Analysis; The reality of war: Tennyson shows the soldiers’ terrifying situation as they rode into the “valley of Death”. By calling it this, he allows the reader to imagine the horrors they experienced. Despite the terror of the situation, they attacked anyway. He uses sound words to give a more vivid sense of the battle.
“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.
It was inspired by one of the greatest calamities in British military history: on October 25, 1854, the British Light Cavalry Brigade, comprising some 670 men, charged disastrously against some 25,000 Russian soldiers.
Summary. 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.
People also ask
Who wrote the charge of the Light Brigade?
What is the theme of the poem Light Brigade?
Why did Lord Tennyson write the charge of the Light Brigade?
Is the charge of the Light Brigade a good book?
What is the stanza pattern of the charge of the Light Brigade?
What was the Light Brigade strategy?
Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote “The Charge of the Light Brigade” shortly after reading a newspaper article about the futile charge of troops at the 1854 Battle of Balaklava during the...