The Lesson (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Charles Simic
- First Published: 1977
- Type of Work: Narrative
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, Self-discovery, Trains, Life, philosophy of, Students or student life, Railroads, Jokes, Laughter
The Poem
“The Lesson” is a short narrative poem in free verse, its seventy lines divided into six stanzas of varying lengths. The title suggests that the poem will focus upon an event or series of events from which the poet gained new knowledge. Such events are often characterized by irony, as they tend to overturn one’s comfortable assumptions about the nature of things—sometimes violently, sometimes comically, sometimes, as in “The Lesson,” both.
The poem is written in the first person, which gives the events that it describes the authority of actual...
[The entire page is 1524 words long]
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