The Charge of the Light Brigade (poem)

The Charge of the Light Brigade
Richard Caton Woodville Jr.'s 1894 painting of the eponymous Charge of the Light Brigade, the event that inspired the poem
Written	2 December 1854
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Publication date	9 December 1854
Metre	Dactylic metre
Full text
The Charge of the Light Brigade (Tennyson) at Wikisource

"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. He wrote the original version on 2 December 1854, and it was published on 9 December 1854 in The Examiner. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom at the time. The poem was subsequently revised and expanded for inclusion in Maud and Other Poems (1855).

History

Composition

Tennyson as photographed by Lewis Carroll in 1857

During 1854, when the United Kingdom was engaged in the Crimean War, Tennyson wrote several patriotic poems under various pseudonyms. Scholars speculate that Tennyson created his pen names because these verses used a traditional structure Tennyson employed in his earlier career but suppressed during the 1840s, worrying that poems like "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (which he initially signed only A.T.) "might prove not to be decorous for a poet laureate".

The poem was written after the Light Cavalry Brigade suffered great casualties in the Battle of Balaclava. Tennyson wrote the poem based on two articles published in The Times: the first, published on 13 November 1854, contained the sentence "The British soldier will do his duty, even to certain death, and is not paralyzed by the feeling that he is the victim of some hideous blunder," the last three words of which provided the inspiration for his phrase "Some one had blunder'd." The poem was written in a few minutes on 2 December of the same year, based on a recollection of The Times's account; Tennyson wrote other similar poems, like "Riflemen Form!", in a very similar manner.

Later versions

Tennyson made revisions to the poem due to criticisms by the American poet Frederick Goddard Tuckerman and others; these were published in Tennyson's volume Maud and Other Poems (1855). These changes were criticized by several, including both Tennyson and Tuckerman.

At the suggestion of Jane, Lady Franklin, Tennyson sent a thousand copies of a single-sheet version of the poem to be distributed among soldiers in the Crimea. For this he rethought the revisions in Maud and Other Poems, and this rethought version was used for the second edition of Maud, in 1856.

Tennyson recited this poem onto a wax cylinder in 1890.

Kipling's postscript

Rudyard Kipling wrote "The Last of the Light Brigade" (1891) some 40 years after the appearance of "The Charge of the Light Brigade". His poem 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. Its purpose was to shame the British public into offering financial assistance.

First draft

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Cultural references

• The poem is referenced in Jack and Jill by Louisa May Alcott (1880) as mother and children discuss the gallant fall of the soldiers rather than disobeying orders.
• The poem is referenced in Eugene V. Debs's Canton Speech (1918) protesting against World War I.
• Lines from the poem are frequently referenced in To the Lighthouse (1927) by Virginia Woolf.
• The poem is recited by Alfalfa in Two Too Young (1936).
• The photograph Into the Jaws of Death (1944) depicting the Normandy landings in World War II is titled after a line in the poem's third stanza.
• "The world wonders" is a near quotation misunderstood in a communication during the Battle of Leyte Gulf (1944) in World War II.
• The poem is recited by James Stewart's character in Magic Town (1947).
• Passages from this poem are recited in Soldier Blue (1970) in lieu of a prayer after a cavalry group is massacred by the Cheyenne.
• Lines from the poem is quoted at the end of When The Wind Blows (1982).
• The poem inspired the Iron Maiden song "The Trooper" (1983).
• The second stanza of this poem is recited an episode of Top Gear (2014).
• The poem is quoted by "Commander" Shears in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).

References

Bibliography

• Francis, Elizabeth A. (1976). "Tennyson's Political Poetry, 1852–1855". Victorian Poetry. 14 (2): 113–123. JSTOR 40002377.
• Shannon, Edgar & Ricks, Christopher (1985). "'The Charge of the Light Brigade': The Creation of a Poem". Studies in Bibliography. 38: 1–44. JSTOR 40371812.

External links

• Manuscript in Tennyson's handwriting at Archive.org
• The Charge of the Light Brigade public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• The words of The Charge of the Light Brigade at Poets.org