Beyond the Verse - Writing the Real World: Tennyson's 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

In this episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, hosts Joe and Maiya examine Alfred Lord Tennyson's iconic war poem 'The Charge of the Light Brigade.' Written just weeks after the disastrous cavalry charge during the Crimean War in October 1854, this poem dramatically reshaped the Victorian cultural conversation around military sacrifice and heroism.Joe and Maiya explore how Tennyson, as Poet Laureate, transformed a military blunder that initially embarrassed the British public into a testament of soldier bravery and noble sacrifice. They analyze how the poem's distinctive dactylic meter evokes galloping horses while creating a soundscape that immediately signals to readers that something has gone wrong, mirroring the disastrous charge itself.The hosts unpack Tennyson's masterful techniques, including biblical allusions to "the valley of death," the mythic resonance of "the six hundred," and the use of natural imagery to elevate a military disaster into an epic, almost spiritual struggle. Through careful close reading, they reveal how Tennyson subtly criticizes military leadership while glorifying the common soldiers, setting a precedent for later war poetry.Download exclusive PDFs on 'The Charge of the Light Brigade,' available to Poetry+ members:Full PDF GuidePoetry Snapshot PDFPoem Printable PDF with meterwith rhyme schemewith both meter and rhyme schemeAlfred Lord Tennyson PDF GuideTune in and discover:How Tennyson wrote and published this influential poem just seven weeks after the actual military eventWhy the poem's metrical choices create a soundscape of battleHow biblical and classical allusions elevate a military disaster into heroic sacrificeThe connections between this Victorian poem and later World War I poetryThe remarkable power of poetry to reshape national narratives around tragedySend us a textSupport the showAs always, for the ultimate poetry experience, join Poetry+ and explore all things poetry at PoemAnalysis.com.

Half a league, half a league, half a league onward. All in the Valley of Death rowed the 600. Forward the Light Brigade charged for the guns, he said. Into the Valley of Death rode the 600. Forward the Light Brigade was there a man dismayed, not though the soldier knew someone had blundered. There's not to make reply. there's not to reason why

theirs but to do and die into the valley of death rode the 600 welcome to beyond the verse a poetry podcast brought to you by the team at pomeanalysis.com and poetry plus I'm Joe and I'm here with my co-host Meyer who just beautifully read the opening two

stanzas of today's poem Alfred Lord Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade. We're going to be discussing a range of themes today including the importance of meter in the poem writing the real world and how the poem was able to shape the Victorian conversation. But before we get into the poem itself, Maya, can you tell us a little bit more about Tennyson as a man and as a poet? Yes, of course I can. So Lord Tennyson was born in 1809 in

Lincolnshire, making him a British poet. He came from a relatively middle-class family, and in 1827 was when his first poem, Two Brothers, was published. He attended Cambridge between 1828 and 1831, but unfortunately didn't leave with a degree due to his father's death in 31. He then went home to go and take care of his mother. During his time at university, he fostered a very close friendship with a friend Arthur Hallam, who unfortunately also then followed very swiftly after Lord Tennyson's father and died in 1833.

This was the year that Tennyson published The Lady of Shalot, a poem that did not get an amazing reception. After this point, perhaps due to the death of his close friend and his father, he then didn't publish for nine years. He does, however, break this silence in 1842, with his real breakthrough collection, poems, which catapulted him to poetic fame. From 1842 onwards, he publishes pretty regularly and becomes Poet Laureate in 1850. Now, this is the highest accolade a poet can achieve in a lifelong position,

and Tennyson picked it up from previous Poet Laureate Wordsworth after his death. So you get an understanding the scale of fame that Tennyson had managed to achieve at this point. From 1850 onwards, Joe and I were actually saying before the podcast, this really becomes the peak of his life. He was 33, very, very young to achieve a Poet Laureate title, and he held it until his death in 1892, where he was buried in Westminster Abbey in Poet's Corner. But Joe, let's focus on the poem today. The Charge of the Light Brigade is arguably, I think, Lord Tennyson's most famous poem. But can you tell us a little bit about when it was written, why it was written? Thanks, Mark. That was great. And I'd love to just focus in on some of those dates there.

So you're absolutely right. 1850 is when he becomes Poet Laureate, replacing William Wood. Wordsworth. And crucially, this poem is published four years later in December of 1854. Now, the reason that's so important is kind of naturally, in order to be even considered eligible for Poet Laureate, you need to be publishing some pretty major, significant, well-respected work already. It's fairly unusual for poet laureates to actually be publishing their finest work while in the position itself. And that really lends an extra cultural weight to the poem, which we're going to talk about a little bit later on. But in terms of the Herm's immediate context. It was inspired by a real-life battle that took place on the 25th of October 1854 between the British forces and the Russian forces at the Battle of Balaclava

in the Crimean War. The Crimean War ran from 1853 to 1856. And the kind of thing we need to get out the way straight away is to establish that this was a disastrous encounter for the British. The Light Brigade, as the name suggests, was a light cavalry division. And due to a miscommunication, an order from Lord Raglan was misinterpreted. The Light Brigade ended up running towards heavy cavalry, which they were not equipped to do, and the vast majority of them were killed. 607, according to the initial count, were involved in the charge,

and 409 of those soldiers were lost. So this really tragic, disastrous and ultimately avoidable series of events led to the death of 409 servicemen. In fact, a war correspondent who was at the scene, William Howard Russell, said that, and I quote, our light brigade was annihilated by their own rashness. And that gives an impression of the way this event was interpreted in its immediate aftermath. This was regarded as a blunder.

This was regarded as a foolhardy exercise, something it was shameful, something it was embarrassing. And Myra and I are going to talk later on about the way in which this poem shapes the cultural reception, not only at the time, but in the decades and indeed centuries since. But one of the really important things to mention here is that this is one of the first major European conflicts that the British public was really aware of as it was happening. Newspapers covered the war extensively, and of course, as I just mentioned, there were war correspondence at the scene. Now, in terms of getting a chronology here, as I mentioned, the charge itself took place on the 25th of October.

Now, the first article that appeared in the Times newspaper that Tennyson read were published on the 13th of November, so just over two weeks later. Now, Tennyson wrote his poem in a matter of minutes, it seems, on the 2nd of December 1855. So again, we're talking weeks after the event and even fewer weeks after the event became known to the British public. And the poem was published just one week later, the 9th December in The Examiner. So from the event that inspired the poem to the poem's publication, we're talking about as little as six to seven weeks. So this really, really fast turnaround. As I mentioned, we're going to talk a little bit about that later on.

Now, this episode began with Maya beautifully reading those first two stanzas. And I'm going to throw it back to you, Maya, because where would you like to begin in that first stanza in particular? Where do we dive into this poem? Well, Joe, I think the best option for us is to dive right in at the start, those first two lines that are a very simple repetition of the words, half a league, half a league, half a league onward. And I emphasise the words that way, because Tennyson has written this poem in a very specific metre, and that metre is dactylic dimeter, where the first syllable is stressed and the following two are unstressed. Now what this does is create a sonic feeling very similar to that of a horse galloping. If again, I repeat, half a league, half a league, half a league onward, you get this sense of a rolling forward. And I think it's such a brilliant way to start this poem, especially given we've already been given the context by joke,

that this is a charge of cavalry moving towards their really impending death. There is a sense of movement and heaviness here that I think you, get from the absolute outset. But Joe, I guess the question I really have is, given that you immediately have this sense of movement forward, but you and I have gone into this poem, we know the context, we know that, of course, so many of these young men don't return. How do you think that impacts a fresh reader coming into this poem and understanding it from the outset? It's a really good question. I suppose the first thing it comes to mind is how the meter grabs the reader's attention. And again, I say reader, of course, it's worth remembering that a lot

of Tennyson's works were read in public spaces. and they would have been read by somebody who had the newspaper, the examiner when they first bought it. They might have read it to friends or family. So it really does lend itself to being listened to aloud. And it's worth noting that the most common metrical foot in English poetry is the I am. And the I am is a metrical foot in which there are two syllables unstressed followed by stress. And that is much more reminiscent of most natural speech in the English language because we tend to start from an unstressed position and grow with emphasis as the syllable continues. A lot of words the English language naturally are iams. We kind of grow in

intensity. So whenever we have a metrical pattern, whether it's trochies or whether it's dactyls that has the stress on the first syllable, we're slightly wrong-footed from the start because the emphasis is seized immediately. So in addition to the evocation of the horses galloping, which is a great point, Meyer, I think what the metre serves to do is create a soundscape that is incredibly audibly distinctive. This is unlike other poems because other poems don't tend to use dactyls in this way. It's quite an unusual meter, even for Tennyson. And I think what that immediately does is it emphasises the fact

to the reader that this is something that has gone wrong. This is something contrary to what they expect, just as, of course, the disaster itself was an aberration. It was a disaster. It was something it had not gone to plan. So by flipping the kind of expected pattern of syllables, normally, as I said, we go from unstressed to stressed, to have the stress

syllable first, I think immediately puts the reader in mind that something here is not as it should be. I really love that idea that something thing is not as it should be. And I think what really stands out to me, especially in these opening two lines, is that if you take a standard race, for example, if you take anyone who's travelling anywhere, your journey generally has a destination. So as you're mentioning distances, those distances would tend to get shorter. If you're running a race, you go from 100 metres to

50 metres to 25 metres to the finish line. And yet here, this repetition of the same distance, constantly repeating another half a league, another half a league, which I believe is around a mile and a half, It just serves to emphasise that these soldiers are going in no particular direction. There is a sense of randomness here. There is a sense of lack of direction. And I think, of course, yes, that refers specifically to the cavalry and to the journey they're taking, but also the lack of direction from their superiors. And I think it's such a powerful way to start a poem that Joe and I will go on to discuss was written so quickly.

And there are so many layers to it. I'm so glad you mentioned the repetition of that half a league and talked actually, about the specifics of that measurement of distance because one of the things I really like about the permanent I really admire about it is its ability to seamlessly move from the literal to the abstract in terms of place, in terms of distance and in terms of the significance of events. Half a league obviously is a technical term. It's a measurement of distance, as you mentioned, and it's immediately followed by the third line all in the valley of death. And what I love about that is we move seamlessly from real quantifiable measurements of distance

to an abstract location that nevertheless resembles a real place. a valley, we can all picture a valley, we've all probably seen a valley, and yet this is not any valley on earth, this is some kind of evocation of the underworld. And what Tennyson is therefore able to do is take this disastrous event, this event that most of the British public immediately were very scornful or very embarrassed by, and elevate it to some kind of spiritual struggle against evil. It's no longer simply a group of men that made bad decisions in the battle against other men, but actually the poem immediately becomes something far more abstract. And of course, the Valley of Death is a clear evocation of the Bible, Psalm 23-4,

though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for God is with me. So once again, what Tennyson is doing here, and we're going to talk about this later on, is Tenison is trying to change the cultural conversation. Tennyson is trying to, without diminishing the tragedy and without diminishing the folly, he is trying to elevate the bravery of the soldiers involved in this conflict. And by doing that, by creating a link between the Charger of the Light Brigade and the idea that you're doing something with God on your side. And he uses the biblical evocation and the merging, the blending,

the conflation of physical and abstract space in order to do that. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And I think Tennyson does a really incredible job of, as you say, flexing those slightly more abstract evocations. This is one of the few poems that we get to talk about where, although, yes, it is fictionalized, it's much less of a fiction than many of the other poems we talk about on this podcast. And what really stands out to me is this mention of the 600.

We constantly get this repetition of this very nice round number. As Joe mentioned earlier, it was not a round 600 that went into this battle. It was 607. However, of course, this doesn't necessarily track as well as something that is very concrete. When I hear the 600, it reminds me of, you know, the ancient Greek myths of the Spartan 300, this very small army that survived a counterattack by thousands and thousands of Persians. You have this real mythic and epic feeling that comes. comes along with the simplification of the number.

And I think it's a really interesting way to bring in the biblical and the mythic. It really just serves to elevate the sense of bravery in this poem from the outset. And as Joe mentioned, he's trying to change the conversation. Instead of this being a blunder and a mistake, it becomes almost a mythic intervention by the British. And I think that massively contributes to the power this poem has. I think that's absolutely spot on my. I think the evocation of the Battle of Thermopylae is a really interesting way

to access Tennyson's psyche in terms of what he was trying to do with this perm. And of course, many modern readers, and I'm sure many of our listeners, will be very familiar with that battle as popularised in the movie 300, 15 years ago or so. And again, it's that classic archetypal story of the underdog overcoming some insurmountable force. And I think just to kind of make a comparison, it offers an interesting insight to what Tennyson is trying to do here, because in the aftermath of that battle, there was a Greek poet by the name of Simonides, who wrote an epitaph. And the epitaph is roughly translated to this.

go tell the Spartans pass by that they're obedient to her laws, we lie. What that effectively means is that the Spartans wanted their legacy, wanted their sacrifice to be told, to be reminded that they knew they were going in to die but they were willing to do it because they were

in defence of something larger. They were in defence of their country, their city, their families, etc. Now again, it's really important for us to emphasise that that was not the way that the Charger Lab Brigade had been interpreted initially. It was not regarded as anything heroic. It was regarded as a blunder. And we're going to talk about that word again in

standard two. But what Tennyson is trying to do here is reframe the disaster. And actually, rather than looking at this as a series of mistakes, he would rather view this as a moment in which to revere 600 men who stood against insurmountable odds. It's crucial to note that the number of the enemy has never stated in this poem because it's easier for the reader to imagine that the 600 were vastly, vastly outnumbered. And that they did so in defense of something worth defending. And that's the key. The ability to tie the incident to the abstract belief in Britain, in the West, in civilization, and whatever you want to call it, is what Tennyson is trying to do here. He's trying to suggest that this death, this sacrifice, was in defence of something worthy of dying. It's a really interesting point you make there, Joe, and I want to throw it back to you again to really focus on something that I think gets missed in this poem quite a lot, which is the direct speech that we get. Of course, we've spoken about how Lord Raglan was the one that gave the order and it was misinterpreted.

However, we really don't get the sense in this poem that there is a lack of intention. It doesn't seem miscommunicated. We have Forward the Light Brigade, charge for the guns, he said. And the anonymity of the he is something I'd really like to focus on. So why do you think Tennyson doesn't name drop? Why do you think he just makes it a general or a generic he? It's a really interesting question. You and I were talking about this before the episode recording.

And obviously, as we mentioned at the top of the episode, Tennyson was the Poet Laureate when he wrote this poem. And that gives you great access. It gives you a great voice because it kind of lends itself to writing about great events that shape the nation. But it also comes with responsibilities. It's not appropriate for the Poet laureate to come out and start accusing scene. your officers, many of whom are members of the British aristocracy of malpractice, of foolhardiness. And I think on the one hand, it's designed simply to protect the British establishment, not

pointing fingers, instead focusing on the heroism of the soldiers rather than the blunder of the officers. Again, you take some of the heat away from those blunders and the people who made them. But I think there are hints in this poem that Tennyson is dissatisfied. He might not be able to point the finger explicitly, but there are certainly hints that he is not wishing to allow the officer class off the hook entirely. And if we could just move forward to that second stanza where we get these wonderful lines, someone had blundered and followed by theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why theirs but to do and die. Now, I want to look at that someone had blundered for a moment before I throw it back to you,

because as I mentioned, Tennyson had read about this in the same way that most people had, which was in the Times article on the 13th of November 1854. And that Times article contained the following sentence. The British soldier will do his duty even to certain death and is not paralysed, by the feeling that he is the victim of some hideous blunder. And I can't help but think that Tennyson would have read that line and focused in on that word blunder because, I don't know about you, Maya, but to my mind, blundering is spilling a cup of coffee. It's not accidentally sending 400 men to their death, you know, because it's not an innocent mishap.

It's something that has grave consequence. So I think that by taking that word from the Times article and reproducing it in his poem with that wonderfully ambiguous someone had blundered, I think, which is an end-stop line, by the way, though it doesn't flow immediately onto the next line, we are meant to slightly linger on that phrase. I think that's Temerson's way of, in as much as he could, in his position as poet laureate, suggesting that somebody is responsible for this, and actually the juxtaposition of that word blunder, against the weight of the tragedy that we know happened, I think is intended to make the reader stop and pause and perhaps wish for more justice

than had previously been achieved. Absolutely, and it uplifts the individual soldiers as well. Of course, if someone makes a mistake in battle, the whole regiment is implicated within, that disaster. But here, what Tennyson really cleverly does is separate the individual soldiers. I think later in the poem, we get this mention of hero and horse, which again sets the individual soldier against the establishment, against those ordering classes. It's really fascinating to me, and I know Joe, you said we'd speak about this probably later in the podcast, but it's really interesting to me that as part of the cultural conversation, Tennyson here was really fighting

for the underdog a little bit. He was fighting for those individual soldiers, and of course, only around 200 actually made it home. And we see this shift in conversation because we go from this huge disaster for the British cavalry and arguably some pretty horrendous news coverage to Queen Victoria, later giving medals of honour to the returning soldiers. So there is not just a small cultural shift. This is absolutely huge for the soldiers involved.

And I think, you know, a lot of the time we query how much of an impact poets can have on the conversation or on history. and this is such a fascinating example of how directly someone who has influence and power can influence the news. I think it's such a great example. I completely agree. And I was thinking about this and we spoke about this before the episode. It's so counterintuitive to me. We think of our lives today in 2025 as being all about the immediate. We live in a 24-hour news cycle. We can respond to things immediately on social media. The way in which information is disseminated has become faster and that comes with problems,

but it also comes with a great opportunity. And yet, if we think about cultural depictions and portrayals of real-life events, whether that's on film, whether that's in music, whether that's on television, it actually can take months or even years to respond to things. Because even if you commissioned something the day it happened, it takes time to cast actors, to film, to edit, to advertise. The idea that this poem was just seven weeks after the event, people in Britain were still reeling from the facts of the event,

and yet already they have a cultural portrayal that is directly or indirect. telling them how they should be thinking about it. And Maya and I talk a lot on this podcast about the relationship between art, poetry, and real life events. And we often talk about that relationship as being symbiotic. I think it's never clearer than this poem where you have events and the cultural portrayal of them kind of working in lockstep, working absolutely in tandem, happening at the same time, which is so rare, even in our modern life where we think we can respond to things quickly.

But just going back a moment, Maya, we're talking about this kind of potential that the poem is pointing the finger at some of the ruling class without naming them or without being too explicit, because of course we mentioned he had responsibilities as poet laureate. I was really struck when you were talking about how much it reminded me of some of the episodes we did at the beginning of this series on the First World War poets, because there is so much of that conversation that we had over those three episodes on Brooke, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon that is present in this poem some 60 years earlier. I mean, on the one hand, this poem is still largely reverential of war. It's got that Brooke-esque passion for and belief in the goodness of fighting for a cause.

And yet that hint at dissatisfaction with the ruling class, at frustration with the way that the soldiers in charge were conducting the war, is so reminiscent of that conversation we had about Siegfried Sassoon in a soldier's declaration, which is 1917. And again, I'm just going to read an extract from that for listeners. I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. Now, that might be some 60 years later, and yet it feels so relevant to what Tennyson is doing here, which is that he is never, ever taking aim at individual soldiers, the soldiers who actually gave their lines.

Where he is critical, and it is subtle, it's at the decision makers. And that is so prescient when we think about the kind of writing that Sassoon and Wolfred Owen were going to produce during the First World War. Now, whether you're a first-time listeners to be on the verse or whether you've been here for all of our episodes to date, the best way to continue your journey into understanding poetry is to sign up for a Poetry Plus membership at Permanalysis.com. There are numerous member benefits, including a weekly newsletter, access to exclusive PDF, including over 300 in our PDF learning library, expert help, and many more benefits beside. So sign up now for a poetry plus membership at Permanalysis.com. Now, before the break, Joe mentioned how this poem can relate to some of the other poems that we've explored earlier in this season of Beyond the Verse, from Wilfred Owen to seek free to soon to Rupert Brook. And of course, those three poets that I've just mentioned are World War I poets. And one of those similarities that I'd really like to focus on is that idea that it is patriotic to die for your country in warfare. Now, nobody is much.

more clear against this stance than Wilfred Owen. And in one of our earlier episodes this season, if you can go back to our mini-series on the World War I poets, we talked about the poem Dulce at Decorum S. Now, this roughly translates to, it is right and proper. The remainder of that phrase goes pro-patriamori, which is to die for your country. And in Dulce at Decorum S, Owen is absolutely critical of this idea of sending young soldiers to their death for a war that really seems to be getting them nowhere. It's no longer for honour or for protection, but it is more for really imperialist glory. And in Dolce de Corum S, what always strikes me is that Owen's excellence are using natural and unnatural forces. We have this idea that they are being absolutely

ravaged by the wind and rain and gas and all of these things come together to make the soldiers suffer. But I definitely think there are echoes of this in charge of the light brigade. And I would be very surprised if Owen hadn't read this poem and taken some inspiration, because of course we have this line in the second stanza, theirs but to do and die. This is a much more gentle criticism than Owens, but it's a criticism nonetheless. However, in stanza three, I really want to focus on this line, cannon in front of them, volleyed and thundered, stormed at with shot and shell. Now, thundered and stormed are paired so closely together that it's absolutely impossible to ignore more natural elements of this poem shining through because, of course, yes,

you get the impression that they are overwhelmed by being shot out by cannons. But the idea that there is a natural force playing into this, something greater than the war itself, really serves again to elevate this sense of this being an epic historic battle, thundered and stormed. You can almost feel the heaviness in the air in the poem. I think it's such a good way to bridge that gap between making this simply a battle that occurred in another land and something that is much, much greater than itself. But Joe, what do you think about that? I think you're absolutely spot on, my own. I think the comparison to Owen is really apt. And when we did that miniseries, and in that Owen episode, we talked about a poem, Strange Meeting. And one of the things that

we talked about was how Owen uses hell as an escape. He says, escape to hell. And the effect of that is to say that the trenches so much worse than hell. The idea that hell would somehow be a reprieve from the horace of the trenches. And that kind of imagery about the battleground, about the trenches, being hell as baseline, is so informed by poems like this one. So if we look at the end of Stanser 3, we get the evocation of the jaws of death and then Tennyson states into the mouth of hell. So there's two things I want to look at there. First and foremost, it's the jaws and the mouth, the idea that hell and death are some kind of ravenous beast that are going to physically consume the soldiers. And again, the idea of hell as being something with a mouth with jaws that eats you is really, for my mind, drawing on the work of Dante, in particular in Paradise Lost, where the figure of the devil, the figure of Lucifer is shown to eat and chew upon the bodies of the worst sinners in history for all eternity.

The likes of Judas, Brutus, and Cassius are all being chewed upon by this three-headed beast. By doing so so effectively, Tennyson is contributing to that kind of cliche, the idea that battlefield being a war is like being in. in hell. And that really lays the groundwork for people like Owen to then subvert that expectation by saying actually no hell would be an improvement. So it's fascinating to see how a war poem like this, despite being 60 years prior to the First World War, it seems to be in dialogue with some of those poems that we talked about in that miniseries. And by describing these soldiers charging into the mouth of hell, what Tennyson is doing is he's almost suggesting that they are repeating Christ's mission. They are descending into hell to save the righteous. And

And once again, this is designed to elevate the heroism of the individual soldiers. This battle was considered a disaster. Tennyson is not only saying it wasn't a disaster entirely, but he's actually suggesting it was doing the Lord's work. So moving through the poem, Meyer, can tell us a little bit about stanza four and where you'd like to look in that stanza? Absolutely. And I'll read it for the benefit of listeners,

because I think what's really worth picking up on is some of the sibilance in this stanza, so those kind of repeated S sounds. The stanza opens, flashed all their sabers bare, flashed as they turned in air, sabreing the gunners there, charging an army while all the world wandered, 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 600. Now, if you take these sounds at a very basic level, of course if you have this hissing S sound, it's generally seen to be quite soft, quite gentle.

Against these more plosive B sounds, which are generally seen as quite harsh, and of course, very literally in this poem, represent a breaking through. But what I love about the way that these S sounds come through and this stanza in particular is that you are not being presented with Englishmen who are soft. We have seen consistently throughout this poem

that these soldiers are being uplifted. And yet what the poet has so successfully managed to do is still offer them a little bit of humanity because, of course, put yourself in their shoes. If you're in a war and you're facing heavy gunfire, cannons, artillery, and you're going in on a fast horse with a sword, you are so unlikely to succeed. And yet, the bravery of these soldiers is something that is uplifted time and time again.

They're flashing their sabres. There's a real emphasis that's put on the fact that they are charging into this situation and they are not scared. There is not a sense that they are hiding. They are not running away. they are running into and through and you get a resolution. You have this moment at which they break through the line. And after this, the S sounds become really, really present.

The sabre stroke that shattered and sundered. And I really think that this is the moment at which there is a turning point. There's a falter in this poem. Because here is the crux of the action. Here is where not the 600 ride back. This is the moment of loss. And yet we have been presented a picture in which there is, no fear here. There is bravery and honour. And it's such a fantastic point from Tennyson to use

these kind of generally quite soft sounds to actually serve the exact opposite purpose. He's not softening the soldiers. He's not making them weak. He's making them strong. But what do you think, Joe? That was brilliant. Myr, really, really interesting discussion of that soundscape. And another evocation of the later poetry of Wilford Owen, I think we spoke a lot about his vivid soundscapes of the battlefield. The thing I always think about the contrast of the sybilance against those plosive sounds is that it's reminiscent of the journey of the soldiers themselves, that kind of whistling of the bullets and of the cannon fire as it goes past is really evoked by the Sibbolins, but then juxtaposed by that thudding plosive sound, which could be the impact of said bullet or said

cannonball. And it's that kind of overwhelming soundscape of whistling and thudding sounds throughout that stanza that really puts the reader in mind of how these soldiers must have experienced this charge. I mean, it's utterly terrifying, the idea that you'd be overwhelmed by sounds, any one of which could signal your impending death. So I just started to pick up on a subtle difference between Stanza 3 and Stanza 5 of the poem, because the first three lines of Stanser 3 are about the position of the cannons in relation to the Light Brigade. We're told they're to the right of them, to the left of them, and in front of them. But when we go forward to Stanser 5, they are still to the right and to the left, but they are now behind them. Now, on the one hand, this could simply

suggest that the Light Brigade has turned around and is now in retreat, which of course we know they did, but we also have that sense now that perhaps they are being surrounded by this cannon fire. And it works nicely with that point I was making earlier on about the description of hell and death being focused on the image of a mouth or of a set of jaws. Because what we have here is the implication that the Light Brigade has been somehow consumed by the enemy. The enemy is all consuming. They now surround them. There is no escape from this. Now, earlier on, Maya mentioned the significance of the horse and hero.

And again, we get this image again in Santa 5 while horse and hero fell. And what I think is interesting about that is that both of them are singular. We know, of course, there were hundreds of men and hundreds of horses, but the decision that Tennyson makes to view that loss in the singular, I think, is designed to evoke the memory of famous heroes and horses throughout literary and cultural history. So listeners today might be familiar with the film War Horse based on the 1982 Michael Mulperger book of the same name. And there is something really interesting throughout human history of relationship between kind of a heroic figure and their steed and their horse. We could go to examples from earlier in the 20th century like Tolkien, who has many such examples. But we can go back to ancient myth as well, which was a regular inspiration for Tennyson,

thinking about the example of Pegasus and the Greek hero, Belerophon, thinking about Achilles and his horses from Homer, thinking, of course, about the example of Alexander the Great and his horse becephalus. This relationship between an individual hero and their horse is being evoked here by the decision to use the singular rather than the plural. And what that does is it serves to elevate each individual member of the light, who remember, up to this point we've largely viewed as a collective 600, we now get to view each of them as heroic in their own right with their own individual story, their own individual heroism. Because as I mentioned, the examples I've just given are all very distinct. Belerophon is not the same as Alexander, not the same as Achilles, etc., etc. So what this singular description does is it allows the reader to view each one of the 600 as distinct as having their own story, their own motivations, and their own worthiness of remembrance. For sure. And Tennyson really operates that reversal so cleverly because you have this impression that if you were to enter this poem as a contemporary reader, someone who was picking up the times at that moment, that you would begin this poem with the impression that this was almost a cowardly act. And instead, in this kind of penultimate stanza, horse and hero fell. They that had fought so well came through the jaws of death back from the mouth of hell.

There is absolutely no way that you can view this specific piece of writing as critical of the soldiers themselves. There is an absolute heroism to this. And I think it's really a beautiful sentiment because, of course, as you mentioned earlier, Tennyson does have a responsibility as Poet Laureate to uplift his country. Of course, he's in a position of power. And yet he's using that power to really pay attention to individual stories. And I think it's a really honourable thing to do because, of course, a lot of the time when we talk about history, you know, we say history is written by the winners.

This is an example where I don't believe personally that the 600 were the winners. Never mind the fact that 409 of them were lost. This is a story about loss. This is a poem about great loss, but also great victory in the sense that individuals are honoured. And I think what Tennyson does here is offer a really unique perspective because he is balancing all at once this great responsibility of writing on behalf of and for his country, but also being very sensitive to. individual causes and I think it's never more evident than in this final stanza of the poem where Tennyson says when can their glory fade oh the wild charge they made all the world wandered honour the charge they made honour the light brigade noble 600 he specifically names them the light brigade

he asks the world to remember them to honour them and I think that's a really powerful way to end this poem. But Joe, I'd love to know your thoughts specifically on this last answer. I think you're absolutely spot on and there's a definite shift in those last few lines. The use of that imperative verb, honour. This is barely a request. It's more of a command, really, that listeners take up the cause, that they do remember them and remember them in the lights that this poem wants them to be remembered, not just to remember them as a disaster, but to remember them and to remember them for their bravery, their heroism, their willingness to fight for ideals that people in Britain valued. I think it's so difficult for us in 2025 looking back to

really understand how important this poem is not only to the period of the time, but to the way we conceive of art influencing national identity, national pride, because Tennyson in many ways is the quintessential poet laureate. He's the longest serving poet laureate in British history, and because, of course, the poet laureate is no longer a lifetime term. It's now a fixed term of 10 years. He will be the longest serving poet laureate. There is, unless, of course, the rules change in the future. And there are, of course, iconic poets before him, the likes of Wordsworth, who, while he'd only served a seven-year term himself, was this huge poetic figure in his own right. And yet, this poem, the timing, the quality of the poem, the speed at which it was produced,

really shapes what we believe poets writing in the national interest are capable of doing. And I think that continues right to this day. I mean, when there are major historical on national events today, death of the queen a few years ago being a prominent example, we expect the national poets, the poet laureate, to come out and make some statement to capture the mood of the nation. What Tennyson is doing here is not only capturing a mood, but changing the mood, reframing the conversation. It's absolutely pivotal to our understanding of the conversation between art and current events to this day. Well, thank you, Joe. I think that's a great way to close up. You know, I encounter this poem for the first time. I think when I was at school doing my GCSEs.

So it's really nice to revisit it and kind of really get into the real grittiness of it because I think it's such a powerful poem. Next time on Beyond the Verse, we are going to be talking about small towns and the river by Mamang Dai. I'm super excited for that episode. It will be our final one of this season, season two. So make sure to rate, review and like our podcast wherever you listen to it. We look forward to seeing you in that final episode, but for now it's goodbye from me. And goodbye for me and the whole team at Permananalysis.com and poetry plus. See you next time. Thank you.