'Capable of Giving True Pleasure'

The Crimean War (1854-56) is remembered in the West for being the first photographically documented major conflict and for Tennyson’s barnburner of a poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” The blundering attack during Battle of Balaclava, on October 25, 1854, was a slaughter for British forces. The war pitted Britain, France, Turkey and Sardinia against Russia, which threatened to take control of the Dardanelles. Apart from its rousing rhetoric-- “Half a league half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred” --Tennyson’s poem is noteworthy for celebrating bravery (however misguided) rather than victory. Like generations of prior students I learned “The Charge of the Light Brigade” not from a book but from Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, who recited Tennyson’s poem, or at least the first two verses and a portion of the third, in the 1936 Our Gang comedy “Two Too Young.” Even in that form the poem was rousing and rhythmically memorable. I can’t remember…