Structure

• Dactylic dimeter

  • Mirrors the rhythm of a horse running into battle
  • the unrelenting rhythm implies that the soldiers have no choice but to into battle or follow the soldiers orders
  • creates a sense of entrapment
• Dactylic dimeter

  • Creates a fast pace so reader has not time to process the information, effective in Tennyson propaganda
  • convey a glorifying tone- forces the reader to glorify the soldiers
  • structure and format of the poem is similar to a battle formation- sense of entrapment
  • The readers are trapped in Tennyson‘s propaganda- effective as he was poet laureate so his job is to glorify war to the British public to defend the positions of the aristocracy and continue enlistment of soldiers.
• Ballad form

  • Commemorates a story for future generations to hear
  • Commemorate the soldiers who were killed
• Rhyme scheme

  • Irregular
  • rhyming couplets between indented lines
  • creates a sense of inevitability
  • irregular rhythm connotes chaos
• In media res 


  The reader is thrust into action with the repetition of “half a league“

  • Establishes a tense atmosphere, makes the reader feel on edge
  • Mirrors how unprepared the soldiers felt entering the war