Does anyone have any information on the poem called 'The Lesson' by Edward Lucie-Smith?

Answer 1

"The Lesson" by Edward Lucie-Smith. The poem is about a young boy facing up to the death of a beloved family member. . In "The Lesson" it is Lucie-Smith who receives news of his fathers death. The poet is merely a child when this traumatic event occurs. The poem expresses the feelings that the boy experienced when he lost a loved one at that time.


Let’s have a look at your poem again. Read it through carefully. Now what’s the basic story of the poem? – a boy is told in school the news that his father has died. We are then told about the effect this has on the boy, how he feels and what this has taught him for the future.

The boy can only see this news in the light of his own personal reaction, he is only 10, not old enough to think of the effect this might have on others in his family – and, perhaps surprisingly, the effect on him is positive. Those who have been bullying him will leave him in peace for a little while and the knowledge others have of his father’s death gives him an aura of difference, a way of being special in the eyes of others. So what has he learnt? Maybe that every cloud has a silver lining – he can use the sympathy of others to give him a quieter life, and he now knows what it is like to be the centre of attention. What about his feelings for his father – that’s for another time and another poem…

Now look at the more technical aspects of the poem, is there a rhyme or a rhythm, what sort of a rhyme scheme is there? Look at the language which the poet uses, is it formal or informal – are colloquial or technical words used? Look at the images used, the tobacco jar, the goldfish in a bowl – explain their meaning, do you feel they are effective?

I hope this gives you a starting point for your essay…

Answer 2

“The Lesson” by Edward Lucie-Smith demonstrates how anything can happen at any time. The poem is written in first person, a child whose father has just died. Although it is a sad poem, it has many descriptive details showing the speaker’s emotions. The irregular rhyme scheme in this poem is as follows: abcdeaec, fghijkjh.
There are en equal eight lines per stanza and an obvious meter of ten syllables per line. In the second and third line, Lucie does a great job showing how his eyes filled up with tears.

“His Shiny dome and brown tobacco jar
Splintered at once in tears…”
Instead of saying, “his eyes filled up with tears,” Lucie gave us an evocative description of how the items beside him got blurry with his tears swelling in his eyes. “Some goldfish in a bowl quietly sculled Around their shining prison on its shelf.” The symbolism of the goldfish swimming around in its bowl shows how even the goldfish were taken from their parents, they keep on going and it would not end. “They were indifferent. All the other eyes were turned towards me.” This lines shows us how he is now different and changed. “Pride, like a goldfish, flashed a sudden fin.” This is a very powerful line because the brave speaker looks at the bright side of things and shows that since he is different from the others, he takes it as pride. Something in this poem that shocks me is one of the speaker’s first reactions to his father’s death. “…Could blind the bully’s fist a week or two.” The speaker immediately thinks that the bully would feel bad and not pick on him when his father has died. Overall, this poems’ images are influential and strong, however some of the speaker’s reactions seemed atypical and bizarre. Fortunately, I have never experienced this situation (knock on wood) but the poets descriptions are vivid enough!

Answer 3

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The Lesson by Edward Lucie-Smith "Your father's gone," my bald headmaster said. His shiny dome and brown tobacco jar Splintered at once in tears. It wasn't grief. I cried for knowledge which was bitterer Than any grief. For there and then I knew That grief has uses - that a father dead Could bind the bully's fist a week or two; And then I cried for shame, then for relief. I was a month past ten when I learnt this: I still remember how the noise was stilled in school-assembly when my grief came in. Some goldfish in a bowl quietly sculled Around their shining prison on its shelf. They were indifferent. All the other eyes Were turned towards me. Somewhere in myself Pride, like a goldfish, flashed a sudden fin. Edward Lucie Smith actually doesn't portray death as a lesson here - to imagine so seriously underestimates the poem. The piece is called The Lesson because the news of Edward's father's death is given to him by his headmaster (at the school where the young Edward is a boarder). Notice particularly how Lucie-Smith - one of the most sensitive of modern poets to gendered language - says 'headmaster'; not the currently acceptable 'headteacher'. There is a wealth of significance here. So the news of Edward's father's death is offered in a teaching context;- and conventional wisdom would suggest that Edward should learn from losing a parent so young. But Edward doesn't learn;- he immediately begins to think of what benefits he can derive from being fatherless: grief has uses - that a father dead Could bind the bully's fist a week or two; In the second octet of this balanced poem we see the public announcement of the death in school assembly. Again, Edward is not thinking of his dead father - but of his new star status at the school: All the other eyes Were turned towards me The most important poetic effect in this poem is the simile at the end: Somewhere in myself Pride, like a goldfish, flashed a sudden fin. Edward is comparing pride to a goldfish: showy, but also cheap and commonplace (and even stupid). There is a back-echo to this simile. Pride is showy, cheap and commonplace - but so is death (the cause of Edward's pride). The poem at base is about how very ordinary death is - even the death of a father; about how death is too normal to be a lesson to anybody. As often, Edward Lucie Smith takes a very ordinary poetic topic (the death of a father) and makes a poem which is both shocking and disappointing out of it. Shocking, and disappointing, and true.