Laura K (NC)
05-29-2008, 10:00 AM
This is the poem that has the lines,
"Theirs not to make reply
Theirs not to reason why
Theirs but to do and die..."
I found the poet himself, Alfred Lord Tennyson, reciting the poem here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/poetry/outloud/tennyson.shtml).What's extra neat about it is that it is a recording by Thomas Edison.
There is historical background to the poem at Wikipedia here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_of_the_Light_Brigade)The British brigade charge was made during the Crimean War.
This poem will appeal to boys, I think, especially if they read at Wiki that several rock bands have set the charge to music.
One other neat thing about this poem is that it is easy to analyze. I had my son write the poem out, then underline all the repetition in red (there's a lot), all the alliterations in blue, and the personification in yellow.
Here are some more questions I asked him:
Where does the line "into the valley of death" come from? (Ps. 23... understanding the psalm helps the reader to realize that these soldiers rode into the hopeless circumstance without fear.)
Why does he keep mentioning "the six hundred?" (to emphasize how small the group was, and the terrible odds of their actually surviving.
Why does Tennyson repeat "half a league, half a league, half a league?"
(sounds like the hoofbeats of a calvary)
One last history tie-in... The "lady with the lamp," Florence Nightingale (http://www.imahero.com/herohistory/florence_herohistory.htm), was a nurse in this war.
"Theirs not to make reply
Theirs not to reason why
Theirs but to do and die..."
I found the poet himself, Alfred Lord Tennyson, reciting the poem here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/poetry/outloud/tennyson.shtml).What's extra neat about it is that it is a recording by Thomas Edison.
There is historical background to the poem at Wikipedia here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_of_the_Light_Brigade)The British brigade charge was made during the Crimean War.
This poem will appeal to boys, I think, especially if they read at Wiki that several rock bands have set the charge to music.
One other neat thing about this poem is that it is easy to analyze. I had my son write the poem out, then underline all the repetition in red (there's a lot), all the alliterations in blue, and the personification in yellow.
Here are some more questions I asked him:
Where does the line "into the valley of death" come from? (Ps. 23... understanding the psalm helps the reader to realize that these soldiers rode into the hopeless circumstance without fear.)
Why does he keep mentioning "the six hundred?" (to emphasize how small the group was, and the terrible odds of their actually surviving.
Why does Tennyson repeat "half a league, half a league, half a league?"
(sounds like the hoofbeats of a calvary)
One last history tie-in... The "lady with the lamp," Florence Nightingale (http://www.imahero.com/herohistory/florence_herohistory.htm), was a nurse in this war.