Title: Tennyson’s Crimean War Writing and Imperial Consciousness: A Case Study of “The Charge of Light Brigade” and “Maud”

Abstract: Tennyson is not well-known for his war poems, however, his status as a Poet Laureate made him feel duty-bound to take a stand when faced with the occurrence of an event of national significance. Two poems published during the Crimean War, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and “Maud,” are thus useful texts for exploring his attitude towards the imperial war: his eulogy of the charge makes it a classic ode to war while “Maud” reveals his constant support of the war in a more obscure way. The two poems, embedded with a certain degree of intertextuality, both contribute to the imperial war propaganda effort and reflect the poet’s imperial consciousness.

Keywords: Tennyson, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” “Maud,” Crimean War, imperial consciousness

Author: Jinfeng Zhang, Professor, School of Foreign Languages, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.