Literary Devices in The Charge of the Light Brigade

A final variation of the refrain expresses the poem’s major theme: in their devotion to duty and determination in battle, the soldiers of the Light Brigade were “noble,” meaning that they were unselfish, brave, and honorable.

This variation of the refrain—“All that was left of them”—indicates that the Light Brigade suffered enormous losses with many of the soldiers dying in the charge.

Repetition of the third stanza is employed exactly and then with some variation, reminding readers of what the Light Brigade had endured and overcome through their courage.

The variation in the refrain establishes that the Light Brigade sustained losses during the charge of the enemy’s line.

The alliteration or repetition of the initial “R” sound in “Russian” and “Reeled” and the alliteration of the “S” sound in “saber,” “stroke,” “Shattered,” and “sundered” unite the words in the passage in describing the Light Brigade’s victory in breaking the enemy’s artillery line. The sibilance or hissing of the “S” sound suggests the sound of their sabers slicing through the air during the attack.

A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes one thing by stating or implying that it is another thing, something that appears to be different but is similar in some way. In the passage, the battlefield is described with two implied metaphors: “the jaws of Death” and “the mouth of hell.” Each of them characterizes the deadly circumstances into which the soldiers rode. The words “jaws” and “mouth” suggest the image of a monster or beast that threatened to consume them. The lines are a variation of the poem’s refrain.

The refrain at the end of the stanza is identical to that of the previous stanza.

The lines are an example of a “tercet” in poetry: a three-line stanza or three lines of verse embedded within a stanza that may or may not rhyme. In this case, the tercet appears within the stanza and features perfect end rhymes: the words at the ends of the lines—“reply,” “why,” and “die—rhyme perfectly to the ear. Also, the parallel construction of the three lines further sets them apart from the rest of the stanza. Through the tercet, a major theme in the poem is introduced: the soldiers’ absolute devotion to duty.

A literary device in poetry, a refrain is a phrase, line, or group of lines that are repeated, usually at the end of a stanza With a minor variation, the concluding lines in this stanza repeat lines in the middle of the stanza and will appear in some form as a refrain at the end of each stanza in the remainder of the poem.

The poem is a narrative poem, one that tells a story. These lines, in following the first lines of the text, establish the setting and the situation in the story that will unfold as the poem continues. The “six hundred” refers to the soldiers in the Light Brigade. Capitalizing “Death” draws attention to the word and emphasizes it to stress the danger of their circumstances; it also foreshadows or suggests what will occur in the story.