The Lesson of the Moth

“the lesson of the moth” is relatively simple in its narrative and diction. Unlike many of the modernist poetry that forms the basis of Archy’s poetic style, “the lesson of the moth” bears none of the complexity and occlusion associated with modernist works. The poem’s lexical and grammatical simplicity is partly explained by the poem’s persona-speaker (Archy, a cockroach who in a previous life was a free-verse poet) and partly by Marquis’s professional context (newspapers are written for general consumption and use common diction). Neither the poem’s simplicity nor its diminutive persona, however, preclude the work from engaging very difficult and complicated questions. “the lesson of the moth” raises questions about the meaning of life, the purpose of art, and the importance of happiness.

The bulk of the poem’s engagement with these heavy questions occurs in the third stanza, when the moth gives his reply to Archy. However, the way Marquis frames the moth’s response gives important clues as to its role in the poem's larger context. The most significant of these clues is the poem’s title, which suggests from the beginning that the moth’s response should be understood as didactic. Lessons are a mode of transferring knowledge from someone (or some insect) educated on a topic to someone less educated. Through the word “lesson,” then, the poem’s title informs the reader that, despite the moth’s self-destructive tendencies, there is something to be learned from him. The importance of the moth’s lesson is also suggested at the poem’s end, when Archy reconsiders his dismissal of the moth’s philosophy and “wish[es] / there was something he wanted / as badly as [the moth] wanted to fry himself” (Lines 51-53). Archy’s focus on desire demonstrates his misunderstanding of the claims the moth makes in his response, but it also reinforces that Archy has something significant to consider after the moth’s lesson.

The moth’s response makes up the poem’s longest stanza, its length signifying its importance. Much of the poem, up until the moth’s response, establishes the situation that warrants that response. The poem’s first stanza uses five lines to set the scene with Archy and the moth, and the second stanza establishes some important themes that play into the moth’s response. The three themes addressed later in this guide—relating to beauty, convention, and instinct—are first introduced by Archy in the form of the “unsightly cinder” (Line 13), “convention” (Line 8), and “sense” (Line 14).

All of the elements discussed so far—from the poem’s title, stanza-length, and slow introduction of themes—work together to place profound emphasis on the moth’s response to Archy, which makes sense considering the density of its philosophical, aesthetic, and moral claims. The stanza opens with a counterintuitive claim about the nature of reason: The moth states that he has “plenty of [sense]” (Line 15) but that moths “get tired / of using it” (Lines 16-17). Instead of living their lives rationally, according to “routine” (Line 18), the moths “crave beauty / and excitement” (Lines 19-20). As Archy summarizes in the penultimate stanza, he favors “half the happiness and twice / the longevity” (Lines 49-50), while the moths see more value in maximizing their happiness—particularly in the pursuit of an abstract beauty. With full understanding that the flame will kill them, the moths think it is “better to be happy / for a moment / and be burned up with beauty” (Lines 25-27). The moth propounds a type of aesthetic hedonism, or belief system that prioritizes aesthetic bliss. This belief system is later reinforced by the moth’s claim that

that is what life is for

it is better to be part of beauty

for one instant and then cease to

exist than to exist forever

and never be a part of beauty (Lines 33-37)

This is a bold claim, particularly in conjunction with the claims of Lines 25 to 27. The moth communicates here that he values beauty above his own life—“come easy go easy” (Line 39). Beauty, then, for the moth, is valuable beyond its beholding. After all, if he burns himself and becomes the “small unsightly cinder” (Line 13) that Archy fears he will become, he will not be able to enjoy the beautiful flame he creates. Instead, its beauty has intrinsic value independent of anyone’s experience of it; just contributing to the abstract idea of beauty is enough for the moths. The moth then takes a turn similar to a sonnet’s volta—a shift in argument or perspective—and claims that his philosophy is how “human beings / used to be” (Lines 40-41) before being changed by civilization.

Similar to the first two stanzas introducing and emphasizing the moth’s lesson, the last two stanzas reiterate and enhance key themes. The fourth stanza, which would normally contain Archy’s response, is prematurely brought to a close by the moth’s enactment of his stated philosophy. Just as Archy gets the opportunity to “argue [the moth] / out of his philosophy” (Lines 43-44), the moth affirms that his stance is neither intellectual nor up for debate by “immolat[ing] himself” (Line 45). The moth, in other words, has no interest in debating philosophical notions—only in enacting them. Though Archy makes clear that he does “not agree with him / myself” (Lines 47-48), the last stanza finishes the poem on a note of admiration for the moth’s clear desires and conviction in obtaining them.