Poetry

[BlackSnake]

Post a poem for discussion.

This is a poem I was introduced to in 1976 by someone that I believe could not impress me. I was in the 7th grade, he was in the 8th grade. The event was the annual poetry reading contest. The unlikely scholar was my brother. Sitting in the audience, fidgeting and rolling my eyes as he took the stage, I'd rather been anywhere else. He began in dramatic fashion. His first utterance captured me...

Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho' the soldiers knew
Someone had blundered:
Theirs was not to make reply,
Theirs was not to reason why,
Theirs was but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sab'ring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunging 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 six hundred.

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that fought so well,
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of the six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
Oh, the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble Six Hundred!


Extracts from the Letters and Journal of General Lord George Paget can be found at The Victorian Web web site.

"Remarks on the Charge of the Light Brigade." The Victorian Web. Updated 29 May 2002. Retrieved 13 Jan 2005<http://www.victorianweb.org/history/crimea/paget/remarks2.html>

 

[haldir]

It is a great poem. Overshadowed by the anti-war (quite rightly so) poets of WW1. To clarify - they were right to be anti-war!

Tennyson sells the myth of the Light Birgade in magnificent fashion, without glorifying the carnage (just read the words OK, to all you doubters out there) but it his use of rhythm that really sets this poem apart.

The words he uses create a constant thrum of galloping hoofs and this is what draws you into the poem and makes you a part of the action.

Congrats on having the balls to use this poem.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

The Charge of the Light Brigade is one of the saddest tragedies in English Military history. Recrimination and blame placing were rampant among the officers who surrvied.

The anti war poets of World War I were right, it as a sickening waste. But here Tenneyson glorifies not war, but the courage of those men who obeyed impossible orders with courage hardly ever matched in the annals of war.

-Colly

 

[oggbashan]

C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre. - French observer of the charge.

(It is magnificent, but it isn't war.) Implied 'That is no way to win'.

Og

 

[haldir]

Couldn't agree more Colly (if u dont mind the informality).

Tennyson somehow manages to capture almost all the emotions of the event, without the usual British Empire crap.

In my mind "Into the valley of death rode the six hundred" rates alongside "Gas! Gas! Quick boys! An ecstasy of fumbling".

I was well screwed by my English teacher (many years ago) for arguing that you could read "The Charge of the Light Brigade" as an anti-war poem

 

[Colleen Thomas]

C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre. - French observer of the charge.

(It is magnificent, but it isn't war.) Implied 'That is no way to win'.

Og

I think the Crimean war ranks right up there with Galipoli in object lessons on how not to win a war.

 

[BlackSnake]

I think the poem speaks to the valor of men, and not of their mession.

I see this as a timeless poem in these eerie times.

...Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho' the soldiers knew
Someone had blundered:...

There are no weapons of mass destruction, yet they die...they are call to fight, and they die...

following the above:

Theirs was not to make reply,
Theirs was not to reason why,
Theirs was but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death

 

[BlackSnake]

Question:
What type of poem is this?

 

[moonlight elf]

Post a poem for discussion.

This is a poem I was introduced to in 1976 by someone that I believe could not impress me. I was in the 7th grade, he was in the 8th grade. The event was the annual poetry reading contest. The unlikely scholar was my brother. Sitting in the audience, fidgeting and rolling my eyes as he took the stage, I'd rather been anywhere else. He began in dramatic fashion. His first utterance captured me...

Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho' the soldiers knew
Someone had blundered:
Theirs was not to make reply,
Theirs was not to reason why,
Theirs was but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sab'ring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunging 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 six hundred.

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that fought so well,
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of the six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
Oh, the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble Six Hundred!


Extracts from the Letters and Journal of General Lord George Paget can be found at The Victorian Web web site.

"Remarks on the Charge of the Light Brigade." The Victorian Web. Updated 29 May 2002. Retrieved 13 Jan 2005<http://www.victorianweb.org/history/crimea/paget/remarks2.html>

Oh! Its one of my favourites!! I first came across it in 5th grade. I am not sure what about it caught my interest at that time but since then i'v continued to look at in in terms of philosophy and history and not just rhythm.

As to what type of poem this is...its one that makes you think.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'll bet what caught your interest is the galloping rhythm of the opening lines, which makes you feel like you're riding along with them.

It's a very martial poem, full of glory and heroism, and Tennyson does a brilliant job in converting what was essentially a fuck up and bloody slaughter into something that seems noble and even admirable. The poem is propaganda of the first order.

It's been said that the British love a noble failure. That's why they're still writing books about Scott, whose expedition froze to death in the Antarctic, and no one pays much attention to Amundsen, who reached the pole without the loss of a single man. In the US we're still fascinated with Custer at the Little Big Horn, another militray blunder, and one not near as noble or stirring as the charge of the light brigade. The Victorians especially loved noble and doomed sentimentality. It was a very sentimental age.

I was googling on this to find out just when the Charge occurred. The poem was written in 1870, just after the American civil war (He wouldn't have gotten away with those lofty sentiments over here; not after the carnage of the civil war), and in one article the author mentioned that 50 years later the British would try the same thing, losing 60,000 soldiers in one day in massed infantry attacks against German machine guns at the Battle of the Somme. No one saw this as glory though. Kipling wrote:

"If any ask us why we died,
Tell them 'Because our fathers lied'."

I think he was referring to poems of glory like Tennyson's.

---dr.M.

 

[shereads]

Kipling wrote:

"If any ask us why we died,
Tell them 'Because our fathers lied'."

bump

 

[shereads]

BlackSnake, your experience is probably typical of how a lot of people first learned that we didn't hate poetry. I loved to read just about anything except poetry. I just wanted to know the story, not be put through hoops to get there. Then I heard a live reading of "The Second Coming" and I was hooked. It was like I'd been staring at sheet music and had never heard music before. Like the Tennyson piece, that one has such a vivid sense of movement that you can almost see the hulking creature lurching across the desert floor, clumsy, determined and unavoidable, like the creatures we try to outrun in nightmares. I had to hear it once to know there was a purpose to the construction of poetry: word music. Then I couldn't get enough.

I still move my lips when I read poetry. I'd rather read it aloud, but the dog worries when I talk to myself.

I don't remember the context of the live reading, but I've never forgotten this:

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.

 

[haldir]

The analogy between poetry and music is spot on.

Composers do not write music for it to be read - it needs to be played before its full beauty can be appreciated.

I firmly believe that the same is true for poetry. The beauty of a piece can be expereinced by reading but hearing poetry read is, for me, the best way of experiencing a poem.