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3 Oliver Goldsmith
(1728-1774)
Life
Oliver Goldsmith was born in Ireland in a poor Irish Protestant clergyman’s
family. His father sent him to the Trinity College in Dublin and wanted him
to serve the church. However, Goldsmith went to study medicine in Edinburgh
in 1752 and then at the University of Leyden, in Holland in the following
year. Although he got a bachelor degree, he never made any diagnoses or gave
treatment. From 1754 to 1756, Goldsmith traveled in European Continent
mainly on foot. As he wandered, he earned his bread by singing and playing
his flute like a happy beggar. Then he returned to London and suffered a lot
in order to make a living. Then he worked for Samuel Richardson and in 1764
became a member of the well-known Literary Club. Goldsmith is a kind-hearted
man who “could give his blankets to the poor widow, and warm himself he best
might in the feathers”.Goldsmith died April 4, 1774 in London of fever and
kidney trouble. His epitaph, furnished by Samuel Johnson, reads: "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."
In his life, Goldsmith wrote a lot of works, such as poems,
novels, essays, etc. In 1759, he started his own periodical “Bee” which
showed his talent in Literature. In 1762, a collection of essays The
Citizen of he World was published, which was written in letterforms and
contained mild and witty social satire. His novel, The Vicar of Wakefield
appeared in 1766, won him great fame. In 1768, his first comedy The
Good-Natured Man was put on and in 1773 his second and better-known
comedy She Stoops to Conquer came out. In his comedies, Goldsmith
corrected the overwhelming sentimentalism that was popular at his age.
The Vicar of Wakefield
This story is told in the first person singular by the
central character of the novel, Dr. Primrose, the kindly, charitable, and
vicar with some literary vanity. After a period of prosperous life with his
wife and six children the vicar loses his fortune. Then her elder daughter
Olivia is seduced and deserted by the squire called Thornhill under whose
patronage they live. Later the vicar is thrown into prison for in the
Thornhill’s debt. His eldest son, George, challenges the Squire to a duel,
but is defeated and also thrown into prison. Misfortunes never come singly.
The vicar’s younger daughter Sophia is abducted by an unknown villain. The
vicar just endures all these and is completely helpless. At this crucial
time, William Thornhill, the Squire Thornhill’s uncle, appears, and rescues
the vicar. The story ends in a happy atmosphere. Sir William marries Sophia;
Olivia is married to the squire; the Vicar’s son, George, is released and
marries his sweetheart
In the novel, Men and women do not break under public
disaster or private grief: they endure, and as they survive they find they
still like living. This is the moral of The Vicar of Wakefield, of
Dr. Primrose. That the buffets of a wanton Fate cannot destroy the human
spirit is the theme of the novel. Goldsmith knew the outrages that the
powerless and the poverty-stricken had to endure at the hands of their
richer superiors and showed his sympathy to the vicar’s family. Though the
author condemns Squire Thornhill, who stands for the cruelty, hypocrisy and
moral degradation of the wicked feudal landlord and of the city bourgeoisie,
he still believed that: a man of generous instincts could donate unexpected
blessings on those inferiors as Sir William Thornhill did on the Primrose
family. The following paragraph is drawn from Chapter 31, in which Sir
William Thornhill reveals his nephew’s evil conducts, severely condemns him
in order to save the vicar’s family.
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