Leigh Dale

Lessons from the Past

Let us begin with the first keyword in our title, lesson, whose first English meaning the OED traces to the 1580s: “an occurrence from which something can be learned” (from Middle English, from Old French leçon, from Latin lectionem [nominative lectio]), “a reading,” a noun of action from the past participle stem of legere, “to read.” The word’s early derivations richly suggest, as does the complex history of English as a discipline, its entanglement in other narratives and other disciplines. Lesson, from the thirteenthcentury word for “a reading aloud from the Bible,” can also refer to a portion of scripture read in divine service — hence, to religion and English literature, as Alison Wood’s essay discusses — and reading aloud (recitation and memorization). This is opposed to the more recent practice of silently reading long, complex texts in the vernacular for the purposes of academic study, which must be, as Catherine Robson’s work has brilliantly demonstrated, part of the reframing of the story of education in the second half of the nineteenth and the early decades of the twentieth century. Today a lesson can refer not simply to reading but to the form in which knowledge is disseminated: a lecture, session, class, or seminar. In this context the word is likely to evoke mixed affects and emotions, even recalling the experiences of rebuke, in the sense of an event that serves as a warning: let that be a lesson to you. Lessons from the past, then, carry a potentially heavy responsibility.

Review of *Rolf Boldrewood: A Life*, by Paul de Serville.

Rolf Boldrewood: A Life, by Paul de Serville. Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press. 2000. Miegunyah Press Series.

Review of Gangland: Cultural Elites and the New Generationalism , by Mark Davis.

59.95.