'The 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.'

One of the most famous war poems in the English canon, 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' is an iconic and yet somewhat troubling work. It celebrates a foolish order in a largely futile war, for a piece of land that is now part of Russia once more.

This lesson plan looks at the historical context and Tennyson's use of structure, as well as the biblical references and connotations.

'The Charge of the Light Brigade' by Alfred Lord Tennyson is one of 15 poems in AQA's 'Power and Conflict' cluster in the latest GCSE English literature specification.