CotLB

• “Into the valley of Death”: this Biblical imagery portrays war as a supremely powerful, or even spiritual, experience.
• “jaws of Death” and “mouth of Hell”: presents war as an animal that consumes its victims.
• “shot and shell”: sibilance creates whooshing sounds of battle.
• ‘Half a league, half a league, half a league onward.’ What does this use?

  anaphora
• Dactylic dimeter (HALF-a league / DUM de-de) mirrors the sound of horses galloping and increases the poem’s pace.
• Repetition of ‘the six hundred’ at the end of each stanza (epistrophe) emphasises huge loss.
• epistrophe-


  the repetition of a word at the end of successive clauses or sentences.
• It has irregular rhyming what might this emphasize?

  The lack of judgement by the commanding officer
• Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, cannon behind them
• Stormed at with shot and shell