Oliver Goldsmith

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Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith (November 10, 1730 or 1728 – April 4, 1774) was an Irish writer and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), his pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770) (written in memory of his brother), and his plays The Good-natur'd Man (1768) and She Stoops to Conquer (1771, first performed in 1773). (He is also thought to have written the classic children's tale, The History of Little Goody Two Shoes, giving the world that familiar phrase.)

1 Biography
2 Works
- 2.1 The Deserted Village
3 Notes and References
4 Trivia
5 External links

[edit] Biography

He was either born in the townland of Pallas, near Ballymahon, County Longford, where his father was Anglican curate of the parish of Forgney, or at the residence of his maternal grandparents, Smith Hill House in the diocese of Elphin, County Roscommon where his Grandfather Oliver Jones was a clergyman and master of the Elphin diocesan school. When he was aged two, Goldsmith's father was appointed rector of the parish of Kilkenny West in County Westmeath. The family moved to the parsonage at Lissoy, between Athlone and Ballymahon, and continued to live there until his father's death in 1747.

Goldsmith earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1749 at Trinity College, Dublin, studying theology and law but never getting as far as ordination. Nevertheless, his name has been given to a new lecture theatre and student accommodation on the Trinity College campus, Goldsmith Hall. He later studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Leiden, then toured Europe, living on his wits. He also studied at the University of Padua in 1755 and 1757. On his return, he settled in London, where he worked as an apothecary's assistant. Perennially in debt and addicted to gambling, Goldsmith had a massive output as a hack writer for the publishers of London, but his few painstaking works earned him the company of Samuel Johnson, along with whom he was a founding member of "The Club". The combination of his literary work and his dissolute lifestyle led Horace Walpole to giving him the much quoted epithet of Inspired Idiot.

Goldsmith is recorded as being a highly jealous man, a likeable but disorganised character who once failed to emigrate to America because he missed the ferry.

He was buried in Temple Church; his death in 1774 may have been partly caused by his own misdiagnosis of his kidney infection. There is a monument to him in the centre of Ballymahon, also in Westminster Abbey with an epitaph written by Samuel Johnson.^[1]

Goldsmith's birth date is not known for certain. According to the Library of Congress authority file, he told a biographer that he was born on November 29, 1731 or perhaps 1730. Other sources have indicated November 10, on any year from 1727 to 1731. November 10, 1730 is now the most commonly accepted birth date, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

[edit] Works

[edit] The Deserted Village

In "The Deserted Village," Goldsmith uses real life images pertaining to the land in his poem in order to give his readers a full sense of what it was like to live in the countryside during modernization. He tries to re-populate the countryside by using appealing imagery and portraits of its former inhabitants and the liveliness it used to have. By using imagery, Goldsmith is better able to give his readers a sense at what modernization did to the countryside and how it destroyed the land the former inhabitants worked hard to maintain. Images help the reader better see how man was taking over the land and using his own ideas and thoughts as to what the countryside should look like. By having a first hand account of living in the countryside, Goldsmith is able to more successfully project, through his writing, the experience of Auburn through him, and a village, which was unknown, becomes infused with the thoughts of the speaker and thereby grows in stature and importance.

At the time in which this poem was written, it was true that the labouring class was in a dire situation. Changes in land ownership led to shortages in labour, and poverty became a common problem. Small farmers were forced out of the countryside. Alongside this problem came the new zest for luxuries and possessions. Poets became enamoured by each situation, and accordingly much poetry of the time uses the labouring class and the growth of the luxury as a key theme. Thus, it is equally possible that Oliver Goldsmith’s Deserted Village is a critique of luxury, or alternatively, an engagement with the realities of labouring-class poverty.

In the books dedication to Joshua Reynolds, Goldsmith attempts to convey his reasons for writing a poem about the depopulation of the countryside. He is sure that the poetic community will disagree with his picture of the countryside as a poor place of misfortune, desolation and poverty and thus justifies it here. He writes:

"I know you will object (and indeed several of our best and wisest friend concur in the opinion) that the depopulation it deplores is no where to be seen, and the disorders it laments are only to be found in the poet’s own imagination. To this I can scarce make any other answer than that I sincerely believe what I have written; that I have taken all possible pains, in my country excursions, for these four or five years past, to be certain of what I alledge, and that all my views and enquiries have led me to believe those miseries real, which I here attempt to display."^[2]

This assertion indicates Goldsmith’s attachment to the people of the countryside; he believes it is vital that their lives are portrayed truthfully and lucidly, perhaps without the typical frills of pastoral poetry. However, in the same letter, Goldsmith goes on to write, In regretting the depopulation of the country, I inveigh against the increase of our luxuries.

"For twenty of thirty years past, it has been the fashion to consider luxury as one of the greatest national advantages… Still however, I…continue to think those luxuries prejudicial to states, by which so many vices are introduced, and so many kingdoms have been undone."

This second and perhaps, more strongly worded argument indicates that Goldsmith is further angered by the effect of the luxury on Britain at this time. He finishes the letter on this note, and does not return to the situation of the labouring class, and this emphasises his strength of feeling on this matter.

[edit] Notes and References

^ "Oliver Goldsmith: A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, and touched nothing that he did not adorn. Of all the passions, whether smiles were to move or tears, a powerful yet gentle master. In genius, vivid, versatile, sublime. In style, clear, elevated, elegant." Epitaph written by Dr. Johnson, translated from the original Latin.
^ "The Deserted Village", with dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds.[1]

The Vicar of Wakefield, ISBN 0-19-283940-3
She Stoops to Conquer, ISBN 0-486-26867-5
Life of Oliver Goldsmith, by Washington Irving, ISBN 1-58963-236-2
The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith by Austin Dobson (Editor), ISBN 1-58827-277-X
Oliver Goldsmith (Everyman's Poetry Series) edited by Gordon Campbell, ISBN 0-460-87827-1
George Rousseau (1974), Goldsmith: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974). ISBN 0710077203
Oliver Goldsmith of Elphin, by J. A. Connellan, Published for the Goldsmith Society (1935)