The Charge of the LIght Brigade

The poem originated when Tennyson read an account of the battle in The Times  newspaper, published on November 14th 1854. It took place during the Crimean war, in what is now the Ukraine, near the town of Balaclava (and yes, that is where the name comes from--very practical headgear for those cold Russian winters!) As Tennyson says in his poem, over 600 men were involved, and nearly 250 of them were killed or severely wounded.



Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 When you consider what they were actually doing, it seems more amazing that any of them survived. They galloped down a blind valley, with heavy artillery on the left and right of them, towards an emplacement of guns. Amazingly, they did actually manage to attack the gunners when they got there, but in realistic terms the action was a disaster. There are different accounts as to why it was such a disaster--who planned it--involving isseus such as lack of communication, simple failure to realise the range of the guns, or simple mismanagement or hubris on the part of the generals. It was partly the reporting by William Howard Russell that made the charge sound as though it was a victory, or at least as though the men involved in it were noble rather than suicidal--many of the words and phrases that he uses are picked up by Tennyson, and used in the poem. Consier this passage from near the beginning, for instance:

They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendour of war. We could scarcely believe the evidence of our senses! Surely that handful of men are not going to charge an army in position? Alas! it was but too true - their desperate valour knew no bounds

The use of free indirect speech here (we can hear the peoples' thoughts without 'they said') suggests perhaps the use of 'all the world wondered' at the start of the poem.

The semantic field of the poem is also similar to the Times article, not just in simple terms but in terms of structure. Russell uses words such as 'heroic', 'noble', 'valour', 'spendour' and so on at the start of his acount, but also contrasts this with the effect at the end of the article where we have 'wounded' 'sad', 'dead and dying' instead, something that we see in the poem. Individual exaples of influence are present in the idea  of the sables 'flasing in air', drawn surely from the newspaper's 'Through the clouds of smoke we could see their sabres flashing as they rode up to the guns'  and the image of the 'mouth of hell/jaws of death' surely comes from: 'A more fearful spectacle was never witnessed than by those who, without the power to aid, beheld their heroic countrymen rushing to the arms of death. At the distance of 1200 yards the whole line of the enemy belched forth, from thirty iron mouths, a flood of smoke and flame'.

The above video gives you a sense of what the context of the charge was, and also has some interesting quotations from survivors of the battle.

When you're thinking about the poem, try and concentrate on some of the amazing sound effects that Tennyson creates. He is very fond of alliteration and assonance, and this is something that you should notice. You may also be struck with the rhythm of the poem, which seems to imitate the beat of hooves of a galloping horse. This metre (one strong beat, followed by two weaker beats) is called a dactylic rhythm--remember it, as I do, by imagining pterodactyls over the valley of death. Speaking of death, you might also like to notice the dead rhymes where a word is rhymed with itself, creating a relentless and deadening effect.

The repetition in the opem may remind you of a ballad--and it has something of this feel to it--there is certainly some incremental repetition, where we are gradually informed about more and more as the poem goes on, until, for instance, we finally find that not all the 'six hundred' come back..

'Flag' by John Agard

This poem is a good start to the conflict section of the anthology, as it introduces many of the key themes of the selection.

The poet, John Agard, uses striking imagery throughout which delineates the ways in which a flag is far more than just a 'piece of cloth'--he uses deliberate irony to underplay the significance of the flag. The poem is framed as a series of questions and answers. one voice, apparently innocent, asks 'what's that...?' while clearly referring to a flag. the answering voice says 'just a piece of cloth', but seems to give the cloth magical qualities as it describes the power that it has.

You should notice the three-line stanzas, which repeat not only the initial words each time (this is an effect called anaphora) but also repeat the structure over a series of lines--so that we have a series of verbs (fluttering, unfurling, rising, flying) and then a series of prepositions (in, from, over, across) and than a series of nouns (breeze, pole, tent, field). This effect is known as parison (you might remember it by thinking of comparison) and what it does is increase the build-up of tension as we wait for the final revelation of the significance of the flag.

The casual 'just a piece of cloth' is undercut by the dramatic words which end each stanza, words which seem to connote war and conflict. This is clearly moe than a piece of cloth if it can do such terrible things. There is a deliberate ambiguity in some of the images--the nation on 'its knees' might be kneeling in reverence or in surrender, the 'guts of men' may be bold becasue the men are metaphorically feeling courage, but the mention of the colloquial word 'guts' also has connotations of butchery and disembowellment. (you could even argue that the men have been disembowelled--their 'guts' are feeling bold because they are coming out of their body--though that's a fairly nasty reading--what do you think?) Similarly, the coward is 'dared' to 'relent' which is an odd juxtaposition of words--he is being dared not to be a coward? Or being dared to be merciful, which would be implicitly more cowardly from the point of view of the jingoistic flag-waver? interesting...

Agard likes to read his work aloud, and here it is clear that he is creating two different voices in the poem. One seems almost dreamy, using words like 'fluttering' which have an onomatopoeic effect (do you agree that the word 'fluttering' sounds like sometihg fluttering?) while one is harsher, using a semantic field that suggests warfare and aggression, with assertive verbs 'brings...to its knees...makes the guts of men...dares the coward'. The connection between the innocent 'fluttering' or 'unfurling' and these more powerful verbs is emphasised by the question-and-answer format and by the repetition of 'it's just a piece of cloth' in each central line. It could be suggested that the flag sounds like a bird or butterfly spreading its wings (fluttering, unfurling, rising, flying) which contrasts with the progression through humiliation and conflict to 'the blood you bleed' at the end of each stanza, something which emphasises the difference between the idea of the flag and the reality is what is done in its name.

The flag, it is ultimately made clear, is more important than the men who die under it--it will 'outlive the blood you bleed' and the final stanza finally repeats the title word, indicating the significance of 'just a piece of cloth', and answering the initial series of questions more clearly. The final link between the blinding of conscience and the flag makes it clear where Agard stands on this--he sees the flag as something which enables people to hide behind it, to pretend that they are not responsible for what they do.

You might compare this poem to 'next to of course god america i', which also examines the negative connotations of a certain type of patriotism, or 'The Right Word' which discusses the power words have in other contexts of conflict, or even compare it to 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' or 'Bayonet Charge' when discussing the power that flags, duty and loyalty to one's country have over people.