Commentary on ‘the Lesson by Roger Mcgough - 843 Words

Commentary on ‘The Lesson by Roger McGough Roger McGough the author of ‘The Lesson is a well respected British poet who is still writing poems and is a poetry performer today. His work has become so well recognized that he has received an O.B.E for his contributions to poetry from the Queen. McGough was born in Liverpool and attended school in the nineteen-forties and fifties during a time when corporal punishment was widely present in British education. ‘The Lesson by McGough is a poem which exaggerates the theme of corporal punishment and is also a parody on people taking the law into their own hands in an environment which we can all relate to. The title, ‘The Lesson is a play on words, the students are attending a lesson†¦show more content†¦The first two stanzas are at a steady easy pace, but that changes from the third through eighth stanzas. In the third stanza the pace speeds up and becomes more intense as the action and violence starts. McGough achieves this by using verbs that would be found in a war, such as ‘throttled, ‘hacked and ‘blasted. In the final two stanzas the pace settles down again, as McGough uses words like ‘surveyed and ‘shuffled both of which are slow actions. The sound of these words is more gentle than words like throttled. Alliteration is used in the poem quite frequently. Some examples of this are throttled, there and then, and garotted the girl, first come, first severed, fingers, feet, and silence shuffled. The alliteration helps the poem flow and links the words together and makes a connection between the words. The ss in the silence shuffled slow the poem down, and the ‘f sounds in stanza four give a light airy feel. An interesting point about the poem is that it is really light and easy to read. It skips along well even though the content is dark and aggressive. The poem flows along easily because there is a constant rhyme scheme and the lines are short and use enjambment. Roger McGough has been very clever in this poem and uses lots of language tricks which helps the poem flow and makes for easy reading. An example of this is the pun on ‘first come first served which he changed to ‘first come, first severed. The use