Ben G Assignment 3

The Charge of the Light Brigade
Lord Tennyson

(Tennyson, Alfred. "The Charge of the Light Brigade." The Poetry Foundation. Poetry Magazine. Web. 24 Sept. 2014.)

I

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. 

II

“Forward, the Light Brigade!” 

Was there a man dismayed? 

Not though the soldier knew 

   Someone had blundered. 

   Theirs not to make reply, 

   Theirs not to reason why, 

   Theirs but to do and die. 

   Into the valley of Death 

   Rode the six hundred. 

III

Cannon to right of them, 

Cannon to left of them, 

Cannon in front of them 

   Volleyed and thundered; 

Stormed at with shot and shell, 

Boldly they rode and well, 

Into the jaws of Death, 

Into the mouth of hell 

   Rode the six hundred. 

IV

Flashed all their sabres bare, 

Flashed as they turned in air 

Sabring the gunners there, 

Charging an army, while 

   All the world wondered. 

Plunged 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. 

V

Cannon to right of them, 

Cannon to left of them, 

Cannon behind them 

   Volleyed and thundered; 

Stormed at with shot and shell, 

While horse and hero fell. 

They that had fought so well 

Came through the jaws of Death, 

Back from the mouth of hell, 

All that was left of them, 

   Left of six hundred. 

VI

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

   All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

   Noble six hundred!

OK, apparently this poem doesn't like being copied. Moving on.

Technically, this is a elegy, however it only has one of the three parts specified by poets.com, that being "Praise and admiration of the idealized dead". The elegy was written for the (obviously) "Light Brigade", which was devestated at the Battle of Balaclava, during the Crimean War. The war took place in what today is the Ukraine. 
As I said before, it certainly has the second part of a elegy. The first part is there, but not quite as fully as the second. Part 6 is the primary example, explicitly saying "Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!". The entire poem builds up to this, and lays out the basis for the glory earned. Some of the first few stanzas express part one of a elegy, that being sorrow/pity for the soldiers, considering the fact that command had made a pretty severe blunder, practically condemning this particular brigade to a messy end.
The poem doesn't really comment much on loss, but mainly on the chaos, futility, and consequences of war.

Side note-- In a recent (last season) episode of Top Gear, they guys drove all over Ukraine (before the current unrest), stopping at the actual place where this brigade was torn apart. They also had a night time drive through the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, with the goal of running OUT of gas before entering it. Pardon the nerd moment.