Over the next four weeks we will revisit Oliver Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village which, with commentary from our Poetry Editor Ira Maine give insight on our social condition.
When I was at school, and under constant threat from Christian Brothers, one of the blessed reliefs from the horrors of algebra and the like was an hour of English. During one of these sessions we were asked to learn (by heart) a short, rather sentimental poem about a now deserted school which went thus:
Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossomed furze unprofitably gay,
There in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,
The village master taught his little school;
A man severe he was, and stern to view,
I knew him well and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day’s disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circled round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned;
Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declared how much he knew;
Twas certain he could write and cypher too;
Lands he could measure, time and tides presage,
And even the story ran that he could gauge.
In arguing too, the parson owned his skill,
For e’en tho’ vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length,and thundering sound,
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around,
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
But past is all his fame. The very spot
Where many a time he triumphed, is forgot.
Perhaps I had been told at the time and had forgotten, but the lines quoted here are from a much longer poem written by Oliver Goldsmith called ‘The Deserted Village’. Goldsmith was born in either Roscommon or Longford in Ireland in 1730, the son of a Church of Ireland (Anglican) minister, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Goldsmith was expected to enter the Church, but failure to apply himself to his studies saw him instead move to London where he was quickly accepted into the intellectual establishment of the day. He remained a lifelong friend of both Dr Samuel Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds, with whom he formed ‘The Club’, a famous and regular dining engagement.
It is my intention, over one or two Sundays to attempt to explore this poem and relate it to the social history of the period.
Suffice it to say that I feel Goldsmith has easily in the above lines, seduced us into his 18thcentury country village life. I myself was once a “boding trembler” and I feel, even now, there is no better way to describe the apprehension felt by a child who in the morning, scans the teacher’s face for even a hint of warmth. I laughed enthusiastically too, (and hypocritically) at many an oft repeated joke; is there a student on earth who hasn’t?
And then too, how cleverly Goldsmith demonstrates in a few lines how important an educated man can become in a small, relatively illiterate community;
‘The village all declared how much he knew;
Twas certain he could write, and cypher too;
Lands he could measure,terms and tides presage, [predict]
And even the story ran that he could gauge. [displacement of water,etc etc.]
His task then was not simply teaching; in an illiterate community there was the writing of letters, dealing with bureaucracies, reading letters from soldiers, or about the deaths of soldiers, settling disputes, checking boundaries and the million and one other difficulties an uneducated village had with a growing bureaucracy. The man was indispensable.
Having pointed this out, Goldsmith then sets about making us care about this schoolmaster;
Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
How can we not care about such a man? Especially when we discover that he had faults, not the least of which was his attempt, when all else fails, when his various arguments, conducted in the most high faluting manner turn out to be nonsense, he would then proceed, (according to the parson) with ‘words of learned length and thundering sound’ to amaze the rustics with endless high flown bullshit! (just like the rest of us!)
In arguing too, the parson owned his skill,
And e’en tho’ vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thundering sound,
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around.
Goldsmith here conjures up an image of all the ‘wits’ of the village, gathered of an evening in the local hostelry to listen to the parson, the teacher and perhaps a local magistrate or lawyer, get drunk and enter into somewhat heated (and invariably entertaining) discussion.
Perhaps next time we’ll have a look at some of the other characters in this work