The Charge of the Light Brigade Symbolism, Imagery & Wordplay

The valley of Death is the first major visual image we get, and it haunts the whole poem. The valley is the setting, the place where the charge takes place, but it doesn't quite seem to exist in t...

When you give human or animal features to an idea like death, that's called personification. That's an important technique here, because it turns death into a kind of character in this poem. It's...

Here's another major personification. Notice that it isn't that different from the "jaws of Death." Tennyson moves in little steps here, and often loops back to the same image over and over, maki...

We're not sure how hard to push this one, but here goes: before we knew what a "Light Brigade" was, we thought this poem had something to do with actual light, like beams of sunlight. We know now...

Guns and cannon are a key image for the enemy, for the threat of death. Tennyson doesn't waste much time telling us why this fight is happening, or who's attacking who. Maybe his readers at the t...

These sabers the Light Brigade carries are a great symbol of their heroism and the power. On the one hand, there's something noble and a little crazy about charging a cannon with a sword. On the...