Key Quote
“"Theirs not to make reply, / Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die"”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson · The Charge of the Light Brigade
Focus: “do and die”
Tennyson captures the soldiers' impossible position — bound by duty to obey orders they know are suicidal. The tricolon reduces their existence to blind obedience.
Technique 1 — ANAPHORIC TRICOLON WITH REDUCTIVE SYNTAX
The anaphoric (repeated opening) tricolon (three-part structure) — 'Theirs not... Theirs not... Theirs but' — creates a rhythmic inevitability that mirrors the soldiers' lack of choice. Each clause strips away an element of autonomy: first speech ('reply'), then thought ('reason'), leaving only action and death ('do and die'). The soldiers are grammatically dehumanised — reduced to possessive pronouns without agency.
The final rhyme of 'why' and 'die' creates an uncomfortable equivalence — questioning and dying are placed in the same sonic space, as if to question orders IS to die. The dactylic (stressed-unstressed-unstressed) rhythm throughout the poem mimics the galloping hooves of the cavalry, carrying the reader forward with the same unstoppable momentum that carried the soldiers to their deaths.
Key Words
RAD — REGRESS
The poem charts a devastating regression: 600 soldiers ride 'into the valley of Death' and a drastically reduced number return. The numerical structure — 'the six hundred' diminishing through the stanzas — makes the attrition (gradual reduction) viscerally clear. Despite Tennyson's celebration of their bravery, the reader cannot escape the mathematical horror: a blunder by military leaders led to mass, pointless slaughter.
Key Words
Technique 2 — REPETITION & REFRAIN — 'THE VALLEY OF DEATH'
The repeated refrain 'the valley of Death' carries a powerful biblical allusion to Psalm 23 ('the valley of the shadow of death') — but whereas the Psalm promises God's protection ('I will fear no evil'), Tennyson's soldiers receive no such comfort. The ironic inversion of the religious source transforms a prayer of faith into a march towards annihilation.
The repetition of 'cannon to right of them, / Cannon to left of them, / Cannon in front of them' creates a claustrophobic spatial trap — the soldiers are surrounded on three sides by death. Tennyson uses spatial language to make the reader feel the physical impossibility of the situation. The only direction not mentioned is behind — the one direction honour will not allow them to go.
Key Words
Context (AO3)
THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA (1854)
During the Crimean War (1853–56), a miscommunicated order sent 600 British cavalrymen charging directly at Russian cannon. Of 670 men, around 110 were killed and 160 wounded — a catastrophic loss caused by incompetent leadership. Tennyson read about the disaster in The Times newspaper and wrote the poem within minutes. As Poet Laureate, he was both a national voice and a propagandist — his role was to honour sacrifice, even when caused by stupidity.
HONOUR CULTURE & MILITARY OBEDIENCE
Victorian military culture demanded absolute obedience to orders. 'Theirs not to reason why' reflects the rigid hierarchical structure where questioning a superior officer was unthinkable. Tennyson simultaneously celebrates this obedience as heroic and subtly exposes its horror — the very quality he praises (unquestioning duty) is what killed them. This ambivalence (mixed feelings) makes the poem more complex than simple patriotic verse.
Key Words
WOW — TENNYSON'S COMPLICIT MEMORIAL — GLORIFICATION AS ERASURE
Tennyson's poem performs a paradox: it appears to honour the soldiers but, by focusing entirely on their bravery, it erases the criminal incompetence that caused their deaths. Post-colonial critic Edward Said might recognise this as a form of narrative imperialism — the story of the powerful (the officers who blundered) is replaced by a story of the powerless (the soldiers who obeyed). The soldiers are mythologised as heroes precisely to prevent awkward questions about leadership. Wilfred Owen would later challenge this tradition directly: 'The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori.' Tennyson's poem thus sits at a pivotal point in British literary history — the last great panegyric (praise-poem) for military sacrifice before the First World War poets dismantled the entire tradition. It is both a sincere tribute and, unconsciously, a monument to the ideology that would send millions to their deaths in the trenches.
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