Oliver Goldsmith novelist, poet, physician, literary hack, lived from c 1728 to 1774. 1728 to 1774. This is interesting because he is the author of "The Deserted Village" a long poem of pictures rendered in that clarity and poetic restraint which comprises great art. The poem "The Deserted Village" was published on May 26, 1770.
Goldsmith paints a picture of a rural village before, and after, the ruin brought by greedy landowners. Before includes details like:
'...
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school,
The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind,
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
....'
'There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was, to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place;
Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings but relieved their pain
.....'
'[Now though] the rural virtues leave the land:'
[And the scene is:]
'Far different there from all that charm'd before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore;
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day;
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing,
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;
Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned,
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men, more murderous still than they...'
....
This is interesting quite apart from the dramatic beauty of his writing, because Goldsmith seem to intuit industrial ruin, and yet this is really before the industrial revolution. The horror is not industrial for Goldsmith but an encroaching jungle consequent on the exercise of power and privilege.
This tells us something about the 18th century, though I am not sure what: where did that tiger come from? Regardless, one interesting thing is that a simple rural life was in fact disappearing. Whether it was such a site for happiness is one question; the fact is Goldsmith grasped the facts of disappearance.
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was, to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place;
Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings but relieved their pain
.....'
'[Now though] the rural virtues leave the land:'
[And the scene is:]
'Far different there from all that charm'd before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore;
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day;
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing,
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;
Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned,
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men, more murderous still than they...'
....
This is interesting quite apart from the dramatic beauty of his writing, because Goldsmith seem to intuit industrial ruin, and yet this is really before the industrial revolution. The horror is not industrial for Goldsmith but an encroaching jungle consequent on the exercise of power and privilege.
This tells us something about the 18th century, though I am not sure what: where did that tiger come from? Regardless, one interesting thing is that a simple rural life was in fact disappearing. Whether it was such a site for happiness is one question; the fact is Goldsmith grasped the facts of disappearance.
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