The Glory of Soldiers

Throughout Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade”, the speaker portrays the soldiers of the cavalry as valiant, glorious, and courageous. The straightforward decisiveness of the monosyllabic verb “rode” (4), repeated across the stanzas, suggests how none of the soldiers thought twice about obeying orders. The only speech audible in the entire poem is the command from their superior, instructing them to charge “forward” (5). None of the soldiers “make reply” (13), nor is it their place or right to do so. For Tennyson, this is a positive trait to be valorized and praised, as evidenced by the use of the adverbs “Boldly” and “well” (23) in Stanza III. The rhyme set up between “shell” (22) and “well” (23) creates a relationship of contrast between the two lines: despite being “stormed at” (22), the soldiers continue to ride “boldly” (23).

Interestingly, the line “Stormed at with shot and shell” recurs in...