Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Some one had blundered:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
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.
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
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.
Then they rode back, but not,
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
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.
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!
Alfred Tennyson
Taken from http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson/710/
|
Alfred Tennyson was an English
poet, one of the most representative figures in the Victorian Age. In 1854 he
wrote this poem, The charge of the
light brigade, “cumpliendo
unas de sus obligaciones como poeta laureado, para celebrar la memorable
acción llevada a cabo por un pelotón de caballería del ejército británico
durante la guerra de Crimea (…) En sus obras
cultivó distintos estilos poéticos, creando algunos de los más bellos poemas
líricos de la lengua inglesa (…) Pocos poetas han producido tal cantidad de
obras maestras en tantos estilos diferentes como Tennyson.
Él ha sido, probablemente, el escritor
más destacado del eclecticismo en la literatura inglesa. Sus poemas,
construidos con una incomparable maestría, reflejan a la perfección las
aspiraciones de orden y armonía que caracterizaron a la Inglaterra
Victoriana.” (www.epdlp.com/escritor.php?id=2354 ) With respect to the structure of
the poem, The charge of the light brigade contains six stanzas, some
of them are shorter and some other, larger. Only the stanzas two and three
have the same number of verses, nine, the rest of
the stanzas have a different number of lines for each one. The first stanza
has eight verses and the six last ones have a rhyme, but the two first ones
have no rhyme, are free verses. In the second stanza the third verse is free
too; lines 1 and 2 have a rhyme; 5, 6 and 7 have another rhyme and 4, 8 and 9
have another one. The third stanza has one of the
most perfect rhymes in the poem. The whole stanza has the same rhyme. The
fourth stanza, the longest in the poem (12 verses) has the most anarchic
rhyme. The three first lines have a rhyme, verses 5, 10 and 12 have another
rhyme and 6, 7 and 9 have another one. Verses 4, 8 and 11 are free verses. The stanza number 5 has, actually,
the most perfect rhyme in the poem: 11 lines with the same kind of rhyme. And
respect to the sixth stanza, this is the shortest in the poem, only 6 lines,
and verses 1, 2, 4 and 5 have a rhyme, and 3 and 6 have another one. Alfred Tennyson is telling us a
story, the story of these soldiers who (some of them) sacrificed their lives
for the The second stanza begins with a message of encouragement from the author to the warriors: “Forward, the Light Brigade”. The following lines, 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, explain perfectly the work of any soldier in any war at any time: go to the place where the battle is and fight to defend his country against the enemies or invaders of that land, and if it is necessary, die defending these interests. Also, in the Victorian Age the bourgeois culture believed in discipline and work to achieve success: soldiers were very disciplined and their obligation was to defeat their enemies and achieve success and glory coming back home to stay with their families. As Lytton Strachey writes “Victoria era el ápice viviente de una nueva era de las generaciones humana... Los últimos vestigios del siglo XVIII habían desaparecido...., el cinismo y la sutileza habían caído en desgracia..., el deber, el trabajo, la moral y las virtudes domésticas triunfaban sobre ellas...” (Jorge González Ruiz, estudiante de la Universidad de Valencia, (http://mural.uv.es/jorgon/reina.htm ) In the
third stanza we can find another topic of the Victorian Era: vanity. As
Jorge González Ruiz writes in his web page, “Quizás la
característica esencial de la era victoriana sea su sentido práctico,
su búsqueda de la realización personal y colectiva, su sentido de lo que los
ingleses llaman el fulfilment o el accomplishment”. (Jorge González Ruiz, estudiante de la Universidad de Valencia, http://mural.uv.es/jorgon/literatura.htm
). In the line 22 we read: Boldly they rode and well,. These soldiers are the elite of
the army, the best in their jobs. Two verses later, Into the mouth of hell,
Tennyson speaks about the evil they are doing because no war is good or
justifiable, but their work is necessary and also they are at Queen
Victoria’s command, a woman that in spite of reigning with sweetness,
kindness and smiles, did not forget affronts. In the fourth stanza we can find
examples of patriotism, another important topic in Victorian times: Right
thro the line they broke;/ Cossack and Russian/ Reel’d from the sabre stoke/ Shatter’d
and sunder’d. Here the author shows the fear of
the enemies in the face of the power of the British Army. We can see the
difference that existed among two societies, the Victorian society and
today’s society: Today’s Western society is against every war. The last two
lines in this stanza, Then they rode back, but not/ Not the six hundred say
that some of the English soldiers have been killed, not every soldier will
come back home alive and will know the glory of victory. We can corroborate
this in the next stanza, in the whole stanza. The last stanza begins with a
question: When can their glory fade; the author means, again
patriotically, that heros never actually die,
because a man who has fought for his country is a hero. For the author and
since then, the six hundred are noblemen: Noble six hundred!. |
WEBGRAPHY
·
Biography (short extract): Salva García & Nina Delgado, El Poder de
la Palabra, 1998-2006, www.epdlp.com (www.epdlp.com/escritor.php?id=2354,
18 de febrero de 2006)
·
Jorge
González Ruiz, estudiante de la Universidad de Valencia: http://mural.uv.es/jorgon (http://mural.uv.es/jorgon/reina.htm)
·
Poem: The literature
network: online classic literatura, poems, and
quotes. Essays and Summaries, www.online-literature.com
(www.online-literature.com/tennyson/710/)