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Victorian Poetry Network
Student Showcase Essay
Natalia S.
English 310
Dr. Alison Chapman
Dec. 10th, 2010
Duty and Doubt:
Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” as a Critique of Victorian Ideals
Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” urges a historical
reading. Its specific diction compels contextualization in order to comment on
certain venerated values of the time period. While "The Charge" is often seen as
devoutly patriotic and pro-Empire, the poem's diction and metrical structure reveal
a subtle but serious critique of the mechanisms of war and the Victorian ideals
which propelled them.
"The Charge of the Light Brigade" discusses the Battle of Balaklava, a military
catastrophe of the Crimean War. The poem is so specific that it refuses to be read acontextually; for example, the poem mentions the "Cossack and Russian" (Tennyson
34) enemy and the six hundred British cavalry who fought the battle. This number
is precise enough to locate the poem at a certain point in history. In addition, the
poem uses the word "blundered" (12), which was taken from a London newspaper
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report on the tragedy (Timney). These specifics pinpoint a historical moment in
order to create a social commentary, which would be useless without context.
At times, the ambiguous diction of "The Charge of the Light Brigade" suggests
that the speaker is glorifying war. The poem refers to the Light Brigade as the
“noble six hundred” (55) and urges the audience to “honour the charge they made”
(53). A soldier is a “hero” (44) who rides “boldly” (23) into danger. These terms are
reminiscent of the patriotic Victorian ideals of valour, of sacrifice for one’s country,
and of what it means to die honourably. In fact, “The Charge” has even been called
“the last great poem . . . that would avoid the ironic awareness that would
subsequently plague patriotic writing” (Markovits 7). Admittedly, the poem does
lack the gritty, gory descriptions of later war poetry. The bitter tone and graphic
imagery of World War One poet Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" are not
present in "Charge". Owen's soldiers are "blood-shod" (6), while Tennyson's ride
"boldly" (23). Yet certain words in “The Charge of the Light Brigade” subtly alter the
poem's meaning and do not permit us to understand it as a mere propaganda
piece or a straightforward glorification of war.
The speaker remarks, “All the world wondered” (Tennyson 31) at the men riding
blindly into the valley of Death. Here, the word wondered is important because of its
ambiguity. In one interpretation, the word refers to the general public back in
Britain, astounded by the courage of these men. However, wonder also has a much
less patriotic connotation: the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “expressing
curiosity or doubt”. The word becomes much more complicated when it is made
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clear that six hundred men rode into almost certain death because “someone had
blundered” (12). Rather than experiencing feelings of awe at the bravery of the
soldiers and the glory of battle, the audience must question the value of a system
in which one error can be responsible for so many deaths. The differing
connotations of the word cause the patriotic elements of “The Charge” to be
undermined, even overshadowed, by an atmosphere of doubt.
In a society which prized order and obedience to a hierarchy, the thought that a
higher-up could blunder was deeply unsettling. What is the role and what are the
limits of obedience in a system where the people entrusted with power could make
such costly mistakes? The soldiers themselves were unable to question their orders;
after all, their place was “not to reason why” (14). Perhaps by using the word wonder
the speaker is encouraging the audience to “wonder”. He laments the lack of
individual freedom in a militaristic setting and urges the audience to re-evaluate
their views of unfailing, blind obedience.
The Crimean War (1854-56) was an “unpopular” one; Stefanie Markovits argues
that there was a “public awareness of bureaucratic bungling” (Markovits 1) in
Britain. When read in its historical context, the tension between Tennyson’s
patriotic duties as the Poet Laureate and the nation’s desire to criticize a
controversial, dubious war becomes apparent. The poem does not outrightly
critique the Crimean War, nor does it cast blame on a specified person.
Nevertheless, “The Charge” subtly suggests that some of the goals of the British
Empire are problematic and comments on certain ideals of the Victorian era. As
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discussed above, the ambiguity of the word wondered is a good example of this.
But wondered is also significant because of its actual sound. The repetition of the
hard “d” sound and the unfaltering trochaic beat of words like “wondered”
“blundered” “thundered” “shattered” and “sundered” are reminiscent of galloping
horses’ hooves, echoing the poem’s description of the doomed cavalry charge.
They also create a sense of motion congruent with the poem’s forceful, urgent
diction; words such as “forward” (Tennyson 5) and “onward” (2) strongly indicate
forward motion. These verbs also lend the poem a tone of fatalistic inevitability.
Matthew Bevis even goes so far as to argue that the repetition of the “ered”
structure is “a ghost of the words ‘err’ and ‘erred’” (Bevis 16). This idea of sound-asmeaning culminates in the final stanza with the phrase, “All the world wondered”
(Tennyson 52), which carries within sounds of pride for the men’s sacrifice (“won”)
and criticism for those who made it necessary (“erred”) (Bevis 16).
Form also undermines content in “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. The poem
deploys dactylic meter irregularly interspersed with spondees: “Half a league,| half a
league,|/ Half a league| onward” read the first two lines. While the dactyls lend the
poem a sensation of galloping forward, the spondees interrupt the rhythm and
slow down the line. Here, the metrical structure mirrors the speaker’s view of the
soldiers: despite their apparent forward momentum, their “wild charge” (51), they
are destined to be halted by the enemy forces. Just as the fourth dactyl is
shortened and turned into a dipodic foot, so too will the lives of the Light Brigade
be shortened.
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Dactylic meter is also contentious because it is generally used for humourous
verse in English poetry (Princeton Encyclopaedia of Poetics). Although its roots lie
in the epics of ancient Greece, the dactyl doesn’t conform well to the natural
rhythm of the English vernacular and is often employed in jaunty, light-hearted
poetry. The sacrifice of the Light Brigade is certainly a solemn subject. By using the
dismissive dactyl, the poem satirizes historical events rather than glorifying them,
further undermining what appears to be a patriotic war text.
“The Charge of the Light Brigade” invites you, even compels you, to read it in its
historical context in order to comment on certain social values of the time period.
By placing itself in a certain moment in time, the poem also lays the framework for
more overtly critical historical poetry of the twentieth century. Nowhere is this
more evident than in Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est”. While Tennyson’s poem
merely suggests a criticism of blind obedience and the exploitation of those who
have no choice “but to do and die” (15), “Dulce” explicitly acknowledges “the old
Lie” (Owen 27). “The Charge” as a historical poem serves not only to immortalize a
moment in time but also to pass judgement on it, and it is arguable that later war
poets follow this example.
The heroic, almost bloodless imagery of “The Charge” lends the poem a sense of
glory and commands that the soldiers be remembered and honoured. At the same
time, the word wondered poisons the poem with uncertainty. The strangely shifting
dactylic meter also foreshadows destruction and makes implicit the idea that the
battle is little more than a mockery. The speaker urges the audience to question the
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values of duty, obedience, and valour - so deeply enshrined in Victorian society –
suggesting that more than a blunder, the deaths of the soldiers were caused by
their blind adherence to laws of hierarchy. The men have no choice but to obey
their superiors: they must ride on, for theirs is “but to do and die” (15). They were
incapable of wondering, of doubting the system; therefore, it is the duty of the
survivors to question it for them. The poem’s diction and metrical structure reveal
its struggle to reconcile ideas of patriotism and the highly prized notion of duty
with the bewilderment of an apparently meaningless slaughter.
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Works Cited
Bevis, Matthew. The Art of Eloquence: Byron, Dickens, Tennyson, Joyce. England:
Oxford University Press, 2007. Google Scholar. Web. Nov. 20, 2010.
“Dactyl”. Princeton Encyclopaedia of Poetry and Poetics. Ed. Alex Preminger et al.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. 268. Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Web.
Groth, Helen. “Technological Mediations and the Public Sphere: Roger Fenton’s
Crimea
Exhibition and ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’”. Victorian Literature and Culture.
(2002): 553-70. Literature Online. Web. Nov. 20, 2010.
Markovits, Stephanie. “Giving Voice to the Crimean War: Tennyson’s “Charge” and
Maud’s Battle-Song”. Victorian Poetry. 47:3 (2009): 481-505. Literature Online.
Web. Nov. 20, 2010.
Owen, Wilfred. “Dulce Et Decorum Est”. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Margaret
Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York: Castle House, 2005.
1387.
Print.
Timney, Meaghan. “Tennyson, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’”. University of
Victoria, Victoria, B.C. 26 Oct. 2010. Lecture.
Tennyson, Alfred Lord. “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. The Norton Anthology of
Poetry. Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York:
Castle House, 2005. 1005-6. Print.
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