Masarykova univerzita

Filozofická fakulta

Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky

Bakalářská diplomová práce

2011 Lenka Melicherová

Lenka M

elich

ero

vá 2

011

Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English

and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Lenka Melicherová

Eighteenth-Century English Village as

Illustrated in Two Works by Oliver

Goldsmith Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: PhDr. Lidia Kyzlinková, CSc., M.Litt.

2011

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,

using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my supervisor PhDr. Lidia Kyzlinková, CSc., M.Litt. for her kind help and

invaluable advice. I would also like to thank her for introducing the work of Oliver Goldsmith to me

which proved as a brilliant topic for me to deal with in the thesis.

Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 5

2. HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL BACKGROUND .................................................... 7

2.1 English Village in the Eighteenth Century......................................................... 7

2.2 The Agricultural Revolution and Its Effect on Society .................................... 10

2.3 Other Aspects of the Rural Life in Eighteenth-Century England .................... 16

3. GOLDSMITH’S CONTRIBUTION TO HISTORY AND LITERATURE .......... 19

3.1 Ireland and England in Goldsmith’s Life and Writing ................................. 19

3.2 Analysis of The Deserted Village ................................................................. 21

3.3 Analysis of The Vicar of Wakefield .............................................................. 29

4. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 38

5. WORKS CITED ..................................................................................................... 40

5

1. INTRODUCTION

Eighteenth-century England witnessed many profound changes due to the

Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions which affected the ordinary way of life of all

social classes. One of the most important results that changed the character of England

was the rural outmigration to towns and consequently the disappearance of life from

typical English villages. Oliver Goldsmith is a mid-eighteenth-century Anglo-Irish

writer who in his poem The Deserted Village devotes much attention to the issue of

enclosure and depopulation which preceded the actual leaving of villagers’ native land.

His novel The Vicar of Wakefield reveals a pastoral image of a parish which is spoiled

only through the influence of the town and its indecent citizens. The aim of this major

B.A. thesis is to explore what features of the eighteenth-century village life are

portrayed in two Goldsmith’s works, to find out to what extent are his Irish origins

involved in the writing and to prove that he defends the rural community and criticises

depopulation and the impact of the urban area on English villages.

The thesis begins with the theoretical part presenting the most important

historical and social facts of a typical English village and analysing its transformation

during the Agricultural Revolution. First, this part deals with the land division, its use

by the rural community and with the social stratification of the rural population,

enumerating all social classes distinguished according to their amount of wealth. The

situation in parishes and the responsibilities of parsons are also mentioned. Second, the

general changes in the population, trade and agriculture brought about by the

Agricultural Revolution in England are described. The change in self-sufficiency of the

village is also presented by means of comparison. Several contemporary critical views

are offered to emphasize the impact of enclosure and depopulation on the rural society.

Finally, ordinary aspects of everyday village life such as the issues of diet, housing,

6

criminality and prisons are described. The facts presented in the theoretical part are

referred to by the examples from the primary texts in the analytical part to demonstrate

that the issues Goldsmith writes about are based on the contemporary situation.

In the analytical part of the thesis, the attention is first drawn to Goldsmith’s

Irish cultural background and then his two literary works are analysed from the socio-

historical point of view. Some of Goldsmith’s convictions which stem from his Irish

origins are revealed to underlie the process of writing of both the poem and the novel.

Both chapters dealing with Goldsmith’s works begin with a brief overview of the

general critical reception of the work and proceed to the actual analysis of the social and

historical facts as depicted through Goldsmith’s worldview. The analysis of the poem is

carried out in a section-by-section manner whereas the crucial scenes and important

facts from the novel are dealt with in separate paragraphs according to the particular

aspect being chosen for the analysis. The analyses are complemented by critical

references and observations from the primary texts. Several rhetorical and lexical

elements are also observed in order to explore the extent of Goldsmith’s emotional

involvement in the issues depicted.

7

2. HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL BACKGROUND

2.1 English Village in the Eighteenth Century

According to Trevelyan, the town was not the nucleus of national life in

eighteenth-century England. It was the village with its tales, old customs and traditional

way of life that was superior to the town as far as the shaping of national consciousness

is concerned. Trevelyan confirms this idea by stating that “village life embraced the

chief daily concerns of the majority of Englishmen. It was the principal nursery of the

national character” (British History 2). However, it is important to note that it was the

eighteenth century that saw the great migration of the English from villages to towns.

For instance, London attracted many people from rural England and Ireland and “after

the plague and fire in the 1660's the city doubled in population by 1800” (Weitzman

473). By the end of the eighteenth century, the countryside and its role for an

Englishman were significantly different to that from the beginning of the century.

At the time when Queen Anne ascended the throne, the population of England

and Wales was estimated to be about 5,475,000 people and only 1,400,000 came from

the urban area (Bayne-Powell 1). Therefore about 4 million Englishmen lived in the

countryside. This rural population seldom left the village. It was only the country gentry

and farmers who visited towns when travelling to market to sell their crops. Ordinary

countrymen usually spent the whole life within the borders of their parish.

As regards the landscape of eighteenth century England, moorlands, swamps,

heaths and wastes were typical of the country and a great part of the land remained

uncultivated. According to Gregory King, the total acreage of England and Wales was

about 37 million acres, of which 11 million were arable (Bayne-Powell 3). The situation

dramatically changed after 1700. At that time, about half the land was unenclosed. In

the course of the eighteenth century, the rising number of parliamentary enclosures of

8

waste and common land resulted in the conversion of uncultivated areas into arable land

or pasture. Rectangular hedged fields replaced open fields and significantly changed the

traditional manner of life in the English countryside.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the landscape of an ordinary English

village could be classified into several areas. As Bayne-Powell reports, the village was

usually surrounded by the woodland and the commoner could cut what wood he needed.

Then there was the waste which was in fact common pasture or heath where sheep

might graze or peat might be cut. If there was a stream running through the village, the

meadow lands or “ings” could be found nearby. It was an area for growing hay and for

grazing the cows. The ploughland was the most important part of the rural landscape

because crops for the village community were grown here. It was divided into strips of

land where only grass formed the boundaries. Small farmers worked on their strips of

land until the time of the harvest. It was a great event for each village because the crops

had to be gathered and processed before the winter started and a festive supper was held

to celebrate abundant harvest (4-5). Enclosure brought many changes to the system of

land usage and to the division of land. Across the country, individual strips of land were

gradually enclosed into one fenced field where its landowner could introduce new

methods of growing crops. The harvesting was now performed by several hired

labourers. Many small farmers therefore lost their land and had to search for means of

subsistence somewhere else.

In order to be able to describe the social hierarchy of a village it is necessary to

consider the distribution of wealth among several social groups of England in general.

Mathias presents a statistical survey by Gregory King and by two other later statisticians

(44). In his statistical survey from 1688, Gregory King classified the English into seven

social groups. The most influential group in England included Lords, Baronets, Knights,

9

Esquires and Gentlemen who represented the nobility and the gentry in the eighteenth

century. Nobles usually held important offices in the country. The gentry, which were

not necessarily of the noble birth, included wealthy owners of the land in the

countryside. The chief landowner was the squire and he was usually the Justice of Peace

as his social rank was the highest in the village. The next group consisted of lawyers,

men of liberal arts and sciences, office holders, common soldiers and clergymen of

which parsons and vicars were the most important figures of the countryside. Farmers

and freeholders were ranked together in one group by King; however, there was a major

difference between them. Most farmers were only smallholders who rented a small

piece of land from a major landowner or from a freeholder. The freeholders were the

actual owners of their land and although they were not socially equal to the gentry, they

held their land freely and could rent it or hire labourers. Then there was a group of

labouring servants, cottagers and paupers to which also landless labourers could be

added, and these were at the bottom of the rural society. If they could afford it, they

rented a cottage, and their income depended on the seasonal work for other farmers. The

next group included artisans and craftsmen. If King’s survey is compared to Joseph

Massie’s estimate1 which was published about seventy years later, King’s group of

craftsmen is here replaced by various manufacturers working either in the country or in

London (Mathias 44). The decline in the number of rural crafts in the eighteenth century

was caused by the increasing demand of trade and consequently by the establishment of

manufacturing factories in towns, and this shifted the centre of production from villages

to the urban area. The sixth group consisted of merchants, shopkeepers, tradesmen and

common seamen of which mainly the innkeepers and ale sellers found their way to the

1. Estimate of the Social Structure and Income, 1759–1760. In Mathias, 42–3.

10

countryside. Vagrants who were in the last group were present both in villages and

towns and were the poorest of the English at that time.

Apart from the wealthy landowners and the squire, there was another leading

figure of the rural community. It was the parson, and the first division of England into

parishes attributed to Archbishop Theodore dates back to the seventh century (Bayne-

Powell 20). In the eighteenth century, the parish was the basic unit of the Church.

However, the parson was not responsible for many affairs. He was usually “not

expected to do more than read the service and preach once or twice on Sunday” (Bayne-

Powell 78). As regards the social status of an ordinary parson in the eighteenth century,

Trevelyan claims that the parson was rising in the social and cultural scale in the early

years of George III (English Social History 373) and some priests lived on equal terms

with the gentry. However, there were still enough poor clergymen and Bayne-Powell

reveals that their position depended entirely upon their birth and education (82). The

country parson in particular was usually poor and had to look for other ways of earning

a living. Some took in pupils, did the farming or saved money by keeping no curate as

Dr. Primrose from The Vicar of Wakefield. Religious ‘pluralism’ or keeping a curate

was common then because one parson was often appointed to serve two neighbouring

parishes which might have been tens of miles apart.

2.2 The Agricultural Revolution and Its Effect on Society

The eighteenth century witnessed many profound changes in the life of the

English. As regards the population of England, the most important fact to mention is

probably the decline in death rate and continuous growth of population. This was due to

improved medical care and better sanitation in the streets and also due to reduced infant

mortality. Lying-in hospitals and orphanages were being established which helped

reduce the number of infants dying in the streets. Plumb declares that the greatest

11

stimulant of the coming Industrial Revolution was the survival of children of the lower

middle class who with some education and a little capital might have climbed up the

social ladder (78). Moreover, this class provided a considerable source of labour power

for the expanding market. Many factories of various branches were established to

increase the productivity of the home industry to meet the demands of the quickly

developing trade. Improved roads and water transport enabled England to trade more

not only within its own territory but also with other countries.

As the population grew, the need for subsistence became an issue. The capital

created by means of the Industrial Revolution could be invested into the improvement

of land, and new methods of cultivation were gradually introduced. Therefore the

Agricultural Revolution went hand in hand with the Industrial Revolution. Waste and

common land were enclosed into hedged fields where growing crops and grazing of

cattle rotated. Owners of the enclosed fields could use new methods to produce more

crops to meet the demands of the rising population. New effective methods of feeding

and breeding the cattle were discovered. Agricultural machinery was being improved

and used by farmers who had enough capital to invest in the cultivation of land.

Although many smallholders lost their land and many labourers became redundant, the

Agricultural Revolution significantly contributed to the wealth and progress of the

nation.

There are two features of the Agricultural Revolution which had a considerable

effect on lives of the English, in particular on life in villages. These are the shift of the

centre of manufacture from villages to towns and enclosure of common land.

The comparison of the manufacturing situation during the reign of George II and

that of the end of the eighteenth century provided by Trevelyan depicts the change that

took place in the eighteenth-century English villages. He claims that “when George II

12

(1727–60) began to reign, manufacture was a function of country life” (English Social

History 387). The village community produced its own buildings, clothes, household

utensils and food. Whatever luxury was needed by a country gentleman it could be

provided from the town but ordinary food and goods were manufactured by the villagers

themselves. There were also instances of villages producing more than was needed by

the rural community. The manufacture of woollen cloth for the home and foreign trade

is the example of such production. Towns were usually only distributing centres at that

time and the cotton industry was still confined to the countryside.

Towards the end of the century, England was already considerably transformed

and country life differed from that of the previous decades. A number of ‘manufacturing

towns’ and urban districts replaced country cottages in the production of goods for the

home and foreign trade (Trevelyan, English Social History 389). The improvement of

roads enabled tradesmen to transport goods rather cheaply and quickly from London

and coastal areas to smaller towns and “dwellers in the country now bought in town

articles which their fathers and mothers had made for themselves” (Trevelyan, English

Social History 389). As a result, some of the small country manufacturers and craftsmen

lost their job and what crops there were produced in the countryside this was primarily

for the town market. The self-sufficiency of a village was thus destroyed.

The second feature which might be considered as the most decisive factor in the

development of the village and rural society as a whole in the eighteenth century is

enclosure of common land. It had been going on from the fifteenth century and reached

its climax in the eighteenth century between 1750 and 1780 (Plumb 82).

It is important to mention that before 1700 enclosure was rarely performed by

statute if all individual proprietors consented to ‘enclosure by agreement’ (Thompson

623). Moreover, Tudor parliaments were generally against enclosure and the ‘tillage

13

acts’ were passed to prevent depopulating conversions of common land to pasture. On

the other hand, ‘enclosure by act’ was performed in the eighteenth century and England

saw two distinct waves of enclosing. The first occurred between 1755 and 1780 and the

second in 1793 which was partly the result of wartime grain shortages during the French

revolutionary war (Thompson 624). Small individual proprietors of the land could not

complain because the acts issued by Parliament gave them no opportunity to veto the

decision. They had to be content with what there was left for them, whether they were

given any piece of land or not. The agricultural character of England was gradually

changing throughout the century.

According to The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary, to ‘enclose’ means to “fence in

(waste or common land) for cultivation or in order to appropriate it to individual

owners.” Enclosure had definitely changed the manner of life in the English countryside

by the time it was completed. Thompson describes the differences between two systems

of husbandry. The previous was “the open-field system of agriculture [by which] arable

land was divided into strips that were cultivated by individual farmers” and “after

harvest, the open-fields became ‘common’ and anyone in possession of common rights

could graze animals on the land” (623). In the eighteenth century, the open-field system

was replaced by the system of enclosed fields each of which was surrounded by hedges

and fences to delimitate the boundaries. However, this implied the negation of common

rights and communal system of husbandry was no longer valid. Independent proprietors

could introduce changes and improvements in growing crops and breeding within their

area without the consent of any other land users. For the defenders of enclosure

‘improvement’ meant “the idea that land could be put to more profitable uses”

(Thompson 626) and many became successful in producing more crops than they

actually needed. However, enclosure meant the loss of land for many small farmers and,

14

in addition, many were evicted from their cottages in order to clear the newly enclosed

area of the unwanted objects.

Thompson enumerates two following results of the enclosure movement of the

eighteenth century. The first consequence of enclosure which converted most arable

land into pasture is the decline of agricultural employment and the other is engrossing.

Although the latter did not include changes in the land usage, it became to be associated

with abandoned farmhouses and cottages (Thompson 623) which seriously affected the

rural society. Engrossing was the process of “the amalgamation of a number of

smallholdings into one large farm” (Thompson 623). Majority of land was now in the

possession of one landowner and the previous owners of individual strips of the same

acreage became landless labourers. Many smallholders had to work as tenant-farmers

for the landlord who had enough capital to keep the enclosed land and to invest in

agricultural improvement. There was also another option for landless villagers to make

a living. Many left their rural home and searched for work in towns. Enclosure and

engrossing are associated with depopulation of villages by contemporary critics, and

Oliver Goldsmith could be seen as one of the literary critics of depopulation in the

second half of the eighteenth century when he wrote The Deserted Village.

Two critical views on the issue of depopulation by the opponents of enclosure

are provided by Thompson. Stephen Addington2 blamed enclosure for the reduction of

the amount of land under tillage and for enriching the few at the expense of the many

(qtd. in Thompson 626-27). He saw the poverty of those who were deprived of land

and stated clearly that enclosure thinned ‘the country villages of inhabitants’ and

depopulated ‘the nation in general’ (qtd. in Thompson 627). Addington distinguished

2. Thompson draws on Addington’s An Enquiry into the reasons for and against

inclosing the open fields which first appeared anonymously in 1767.

15

between two forms of depopulation, the first one being the rural outmigration which

included emigration to foreign countries, and the other form is represented by the fall in

the marriage rate ‘among lower classes of people’ due to the difficulty of securing a

dwelling and employment in the countryside (qtd. in Thompson 627). Both forms

resulted in the sad image of abandoned cottages and lifeless villages, which was

becoming rather a common appearance of the English countryside towards the end of

the eighteenth century.

Richard Price3 is the second critic of depopulation and saw its major causes in

enclosure and engrossing of farms (qtd. in Thompson 627). He was also interested in

life expectancy of people living in different environments. He collected various

mortality data and concluded that “the unhealthy conditions found in towns, ‘and the

luxury which generally prevails in them’, were responsible for checking the increase of

population” (qtd. in Thompson 627). Because of the unhealthy living conditions in large

towns, the life expectancy of urban dwellers was rather low. The towns “depended on

rural incomers in order to maintain their size” (qtd. in Thompson 628) and in order to

keep everyday life and business flowing. The increase in the urban population therefore

included the reduction of the rural population .The towns were ascribed a negative

character by several critics and literary figures. Goldsmith seems to follow the general

mood of the eighteenth century because “there was a progressive disenchantment with

the metropolis as it appeared to lose its innocence and divine approbation because of its

secularization and commitment to purely social and economic values” (Weitzman 472).

Arthur Young, one of the most influential defenders of enclosure, was also aware of

‘the rural exodus’ which he ascribed primarily to the improvement of roads. He saw that

the transport from distant villages to London became cheaper and faster, and he

3. Thompson uses the first edition of Price’s Observations on reversionary payments from 1771.

16

deplored the fact that so many villagers “quit their healthy clean fields for a region of

dirt, stink, and noise” (qtd. in Trevelyan, English Social History 397). As mentioned

above, depopulation of villages was also criticised by Goldsmith in The Deserted

Village, while The Vicar of Wakefield defends the traditional spirit of the rural area and

condemns towns as places of innumerable vices.

2.3 Other Aspects of the Rural Life in Eighteenth-Century England

Apart from enclosure of common land and its depopulating effects on the rural

society, the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions brought many new goods and ideas

to the rural area.

Probably the most notable effect of the Agricultural Revolution on everyday life

of village dwellers was the improved diet. With the new machinery and effective

methods being introduced into the farming of land and breeding cattle, there was more

food produced even for the benefit of the poorest families. More grass and root crops

such as hay, turnips and mangolds were grown and if properly stored, they kept farm

animals alive during the winter. Therefore, there was no need to have meat salted for the

winter season. In addition, the new soil techniques made it possible to grow wheat in

most parts of England. It became common for villagers to have white wheaten bread,

fresh meat, and lots of vegetables and fruit on their tables. Goods and food became

cheap because of the canal system and the improvement of roads. These factors raised

the standard of life also for the poor and it is interesting to mention that the

consumption of white bread, roast beef and beer added to the feeling of an

Englishman’s superiority over the French (Plumb 83). Not only the national wealth

accumulated, the sense of Englishness was also heightened. As regards the drinks of

villagers at the beginning of the eighteenth century, beer and spirits were still popular,

but as the foreign trade expanded and the inland transport of goods improved, tea, sugar

17

and tobacco found their way into the village. The East India Company supplied England

with quantities of these items and they became available to all social classes. Although

the poor started to drink tea in large quantities, it was not always of appropriate quality.

They bought cheaper tea which had been smuggled or adulterated with sloe, gooseberry

leaves or pieces of stick (Bayne-Powell 214). Whether natural or adulterated, it is true

that tea became no longer enjoyed only in the ‘coffee-houses’ but also in people’s own

homes and “tea-drinking had become a national habit” (Trevelyan, English Social

History 402).

New materials and goods established themselves as important elements for the

well-being of the rural society and helped raise the standard of life in the country.

Cotton became to be used to produce cheap clothes which could be washed, and pottery

was used instead of pewter. They way people built their houses also changed. Bayne-

Powell describes the eighteenth-century dwellings as superior to those of the previous

century (35). The newer houses were solidly built, had cellars and sash windows. The

rooms were large and furnished with light furniture. In the dwellings of the simple

people, there was still one large chamber for all the daughters and one for all the sons of

the family; however, the wealthier had their rooms separated as it became the rule later

in the eighteenth century.

The issue of criminality in the countryside of eighteenth-century England should

also be analysed. It is a fact that penal law was rather cruel to criminals and one could

be sentenced to death for stealing banal things like eggs. However, some social

historians might argue whether it was better to be imprisoned or to be executed because

English prisons had acquired a bad reputation. Trevelyan admits that “English prisons

remained for the rest of the century a national disgrace” (English Social History 361)

and Bayne-Powell suggests that it was better to be whipped than to be imprisoned or set

18

in the stocks or the pillory (227). The prisons in towns were particularly dreadful.

Torturing, flogging and starving the poor who obviously had no money to acquit the

debt was a daily routine. Bayne-Powell explains that if a villager committed a crime, he

was led by a constable into the village lock-up or round-house which was the rural

equivalent of the urban prison. These were small, dark, stone buildings which served as

temporary imprisonment only until the offender could be interrogated by the

magistrates. If sentenced, he was sent to gaol in the nearest town (292). One of the

frequent crimes was a highway robbery which was at its peak in the eighteenth century

(Bayne-Powell 292). The improvement of roads and increased mobility of the

population caused that there were more highwaymen waiting behind thicket to attack

and rob the travellers. This resulted in the increase of violence, particularly on lonely

country roads of the countryside. By 1820, most of the rural land was enclosed or

ploughed up, and gamekeepers and man-traps guarded these areas. It therefore became

increasingly difficult to roam near the roads and highway robbery became gradually

extinct (Trevelyan, English Social History 389).

19

3. GOLDSMITH’S CONTRIBUTION TO HISTORY AND LITERATURE

3.1 Ireland and England in Goldsmith’s Life and Writing

“He wrote like an angel but talked like poor Poll,” wrote David Garrick about

Oliver Goldsmith (qtd. in Washington 362). It cannot be denied that Goldsmith

possessed literary wit but his appearance and habits often made him ridiculous in the

eyes of those who met him. Oliver Goldsmith was born 10 November 1728 in Ireland as

the second son of Charles Goldsmith, an Anglican clergyman. Oliver spent his

childhood at Lissoy where his father was appointed to serve as a parson. He studied at

Trinity College in Dublin and received his BA in 1749. He then travelled around

Europe, wandering through France, Netherlands and Italy, and it is on the continent

where he probably received his medical degree. During his tour on foot, he lived hand

to mouth, earning a living by playing the flute or giving lessons of English. In 1756 he

returned to England and settled in London where he experienced other occupations. He

practiced as a physician for a while and later worked as an usher in Peckham.

Unsuccessful in these attempts to earn enough money to pay out his rising debts, he

became a hack writer for various periodicals. In 1761 he met Samuel Johnson who

became his great friend and patron and who made Goldsmith a member of the “Club”,

later known as “The Literary Club” in 1764. Here Goldsmith met other great figures of

the eighteenth century such as James Boswell, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Edmund Burke.

His drunkenness and extravagance caused that he was almost constantly without money

and therefore never free of debt and worry. In spite of his awkward manners and scarred

complexion from smallpox, he managed to find friends who valued him for his literary

talent. Despite his bitter and turbulent life, he created works filled with charm, humour

and common sense. Oliver Goldsmith died in 1774 and since then he has been viewed

as one of the best neoclassical writers of his period.

20

The Deserted Village is regarded as one of Goldsmith’s finest poems and most

critics agree that the writing was much influenced by his early years spent in Ireland.

Lissoy is generally accepted as a model for Auburn and characters and images which

Goldsmith might have seen in the Irish rural setting permeate the poem. He grew up in a

rather isolated rural society where the rich and the poor presented a sharp contrast to

each other and class barriers were difficult to break. Seitz suggests that much of

Goldsmith’s writing was influenced by his social and political thought formed by his

admiration for the English middle class. This sprang from “the relative non-existence of

such a class in Ireland” and from the fact that the English middle class with its festival

celebrations reminded him of his youth in Ireland (405). In the English middle class he

found a substitute for the social gap which he might have perceived in Ireland.

Several images in The Vicar of Wakefield and the issues in The Deserted Village

are based on Goldsmith’s experiences from Ireland. One of his convictions is revealed

in the poem’s section which describes emigration of villagers to America. Goldsmith

believed that this migration is responsible for depopulation of England but this is more

related to Ireland than to England. Moreover, Goldsmith remembered depopulation of

villages in Ireland but the evidence that he saw something similar taking place in

England is vague (Seitz 407). Seitz further asserts that on his wandering through

England Goldsmith actually found his utopian village but saw only what he wished to

see. Around the ideal English rural community with its festive activity he began to build

his philosophy which was formed by his experiences from Ireland (408). In The

Revolution of Low Life, which is a prose draft to The Deserted Village, Goldsmith

reports that he saw an English village whose inhabitants were about to be evicted

because their land was bought out by one London merchant who planned to build his

mansion there. Goldsmith was amazed at this reason for depopulation and blamed the

21

newly rich commercial aristocracy for the destroyed village (Seitz 409). But this bias

towards enclosures and wealthy landowners again springs from a typically Irish

phenomenon and that is the reduction of the husbandman as a result of the occupation of

lands by “some general undertaker” (Seitz 409). The Deserted Village is therefore to be

regarded as dealing with the situation taking place rather in Ireland than in England but

the poem is set in the English environment of one village that Goldsmith saw and

applied his thoughts to.

As far as The Vicar of Wakefield is concerned, Goldsmith’s Irish background is

reflected in what Seitz calls the distrust of the great. It stems from the stereotype of “a

provincial Irish countryman who has not in his formative years habitually moved

outside his own circle” (406) and is therefore subjected to the social gap existing in his

community. Goldsmith was a part of the Irish society which distinguished between an

ideal landlord and a villainous “squireen,” or middle man (406). The former character is

represented by Sir William Thornhill and the latter by Squire Thornhill. In describing

their character, Goldsmith expresses typical country prejudice and suspiciousness

towards the wealthy. He himself stood aloof from the great men who had the means to

help him in difficulties. He rather used the great as villains for his writings (406). To

sum up, according to Seitz, the impact of the Irish background on Goldsmith’s writings

is traceable in the descriptions concerning the English issues such as enclosure,

depopulation and the squirearchy and these descriptions in turn, are based on his

experience with depopulation in Ireland and with the social gap which he witnessed

there.

3.2 Analysis of The Deserted Village

As regards the village and villagers of England, Goldsmith is one of their most

22

prominent admirers. If taking a closer look at his personality, it is no wonder why he

proved the capability to describe the village, its charms and decay with such interest at

heart. He spent his childhood in the rural setting of Lissoy and grew up surrounded by

numerous unforgettable village customs and kind village folks. He saw many rural

districts in Europe and witnessed instances of depopulation in England. With all these

Anglo-Irish experiences in mind, he created The Deserted Village. The general critical

reception of the historic origins of the poem’s village is of the incredulous tone.

Macaulay declares that the poem is “made up of two incongruous parts. The village in

its happy days is a true English village. The village in its decay is an Irish village” (qtd.

in Patton 89). Seitz from the previous chapter would agree. Although Goldsmith claims

that he witnessed depopulation of villages in Ireland, Dobson asserts that “none of his

biographers have brought forward any of that evidence which he [Goldsmith] affirmed

he had collected, of similar enormities in England” (qtd. in Patton 88). Montague argues

that the poem is unfocused because Goldsmith is trying to explain too much and

“Auburn can’t be both Lissoy and an English village” (qtd. in Lucas 56). Patton

concludes that whatever Goldsmith’s intellectual background for writing the poem was

the poem cannot be condemned as untrue or fanciful because the facts which it depicts

are true from the social and historical point of view (91). Goldsmith did not have to

possess any written evidence for the conditions he saw but local depopulation, evictions

by lords and accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few were evident enough by the

time the poem was published in 1770.

The social and historical accuracy of The Deserted Village is undeniable. It

depicts the results of enclosure and economic change in the English villages of the

eighteenth century as viewed by Oliver Goldsmith. It is written in a distinctive logical

pattern by which Goldsmith effectively develops the arguments for village life and

23

against recently accumulating wealth of the few. The poem begins with the description

of the charms of Auburn which was once full of joy. Villagers led busy lives but they

always found time to rest and amuse themselves after the day’s toil. They lived in

harmony with Nature which in turn provided them with everything they needed to

survive. Wenzl identifies the four opening lines as rhetorical apostrophe whose function

in this poem is to overcome reader’s disbelief in the facts presented. The poet

“addresses some inanimate thing, thereby infusing it with life” (20). The sense of

intimacy is created between the poet and his subject and this in turn applies to the

relationship between the poet and the reader and adds to the credibility of poet’s

assertions (Wenzl 20). The first paragraph ends with words that suggest what will

follow next: “These were thy charms – But all these charms are fled” (“Deserted

Village” 40). Goldsmith proceeds to the description of altered Auburn. No sports or

charms are visible anymore, only desolation rules the countryside. The issue of

enclosure is mentioned for the first time in line 39: “One only master grasps the whole

domain” (“Deserted Village” 40). Goldsmith uses words of negative association such as

‘choked with sedges’, ‘solitary’, ‘desert walks’, ‘shapeless ruin’, and ‘mouldering wall’

to emphasize the contrast between the past happiness of the village and its present

desolation. After this introductive comparison of the two different images of the same

village Goldsmith expresses the central argument of the poem in two short paragraphs

which is “Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, / Where wealth accumulates, and

men decay” (“Deserted Village” 41). He suggests that there are changes taking place in

the countryside which cause that wealth which spoils the character accumulates in the

hands of the few and that the poor are left without the land and consequently have to

leave in order to find other means of subsistence. He emphasizes the fact that wealth is

only temporal and that the peasantry which “When once destroyed can never be

24

supplied” (“Deserted Village” 41) and is more important for the country’s pride than the

gentry. He continues to develop his opinion against enclosure by referring to the

previous open-field system of ownership “When every rood of ground maintained its

man” (“Deserted Village” 41) and asserts that by agricultural labour the villagers had

everything they needed and the community was therefore self-sufficient and free from

worries about the amount of their wealth: “light labour... gave [the villager] what life

required, but gave no more: / His best companions, innocence and health; / And his best

riches, ignorance of wealth” (“Deserted Village” 41). The rural community was

innocent and healthy without surplus wealth but the situation is altered. Goldsmith

blames trade for the transformation of the countryside and for the continuous

disappearance of ‘rural mirth and manners’.

After presenting the past and present image of the village and after revealing his

arguments, Goldsmith proceeds to introduce his personality into the poem. A wanderer

appears as a narrator who will introduce further facts to support Goldsmith’s arguments.

The narrator is Goldsmith himself because in his letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds he admits

that he travelled round the country and saw the miseries he describes (“Deserted

Village” 37). He therefore constitutes the wanderer who saw and remembers many

things and is reliable in what he utters. This also serves to create a sense of intimacy

between the reader and the narrator which consequently applies to the village itself and

thus Goldsmith’s aim to evoke reader’s sympathy for the village and its inhabitants is

fulfilled. As Wenzl reports, “a village, which was before unknown, becomes infused

with the feeling of the speaker and thereby grows in stature and importance” (20).

Having the altered status of Auburn presented, some reasons of its decay revealed and

the function of the wanderer as a narrator established, Goldsmith moves on to

strengthen reader’s feelings for the village by sound imagery and by three sketches. He

25

involves his memories to depict the former qualities of the village which were presented

not only in its natural beauty but also in its folks. The sounds of the village were sweet

to him. The songs, murmurs, laughter and animal sounds are depicted vividly as if to

transfer the reader into the past when life was cheerful. However, “now the sounds of

population fail” (“Deserted Village” 43) because many villagers are gone and only a

wretched matron stays as ‘the sad historian’ to tell the story of the deserted village.

Three sketches of most influential subjects of the countryside follow. Goldsmith

describes the village preacher, the schoolmaster and the ale-house which were once

inseparable from daily rural life. Wenzl claims that “what Goldsmith does in The

Deserted Village is to re-populate it with appealing portraits of its former inhabitants”

(21) and which are of institutional character and crucial to the maintenance of

community (23). The parson brought relief and joy to everyone, be it a vagrant beggar,

a repentant spendthrift or a passing-by soldier who searched for relief on their

wanderings. The welfare of children was also at his heart and he held the community

together. The schoolmaster was respected as a source of knowledge and helped transmit

cultural heritage to next generations. The ale-house is depicted as an important meeting

place “Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, / And news much older

than their ale went round” (“Deserted Village” 47) and where the oral tradition was kept

alive. The place was clean and tidy and everything was regulated by common sense and

simple rural wisdom. Goldsmith clearly sides with the village when he writes about the

parson that “Remote from towns he ran his godly race, / Nor e’er had chang’d, nor

wish’d to change, his place” (“Deserted Village” 46). No change for anything was ever

needed and the village society led happy life without the influence of the town, its

manners and its economic system. By the use of vivid literary images and by

emphasizing the importance of Auburn’s leading characters, Goldsmith enhances

26

reader’s liking for the village which is presented as an ideal place to live in without any

interference of towns. In addition, Goldsmith touches upon the issue of the decline of

traditional rural crafts when he enumerates that no more shall the farmer, the barber, the

woodman, the smith and the host himself meet at the ale-house when all villagers are

gone and the building is of no more use to anyone because the community is shattered.

To emphasize the misery which ‘vain transitory splendours’ brought to the village, he

uses rhetorical anaphora with the crafts. ‘No more’ is repeated three times to underline

the transformation of the village to the worse and the end of its happy times.

The turn in the poem comes with lines 251-254: “Yes! Let the rich deride, the

proud disdain, / These simple blessings of the lowly train; / To me more dear, congenial

to my heart, / One native charm, than all the gloss of art” (“Deserted Village” 48).

Goldsmith proceeds to the actual defence of the rural life and to the accusation of the

rich for the decay of the village and calls to the conscience of statesmen to “judge how

wide the limits stand / Between a splendid and a happy land” (“Deserted Village” 48).

Enclosing and improving the land in order to enrich the few is the cause of the misery of

the countryside and its inhabitants. The rich are blamed for the negative effect of

enclosure when “The man of wealth and pride / Takes up a space that many poor

supplied” (“Deserted Village” 49) and also for eviction when this man’s luxurious and

vast seat “spurns the cottage from the green” (“Deserted Village” 49). The land is used

only for pleasure by the rich and “In barren splendour feebly waits the fall” (“Deserted

Village” 49). There is nothing good that the enclosing and occupying of the land by the

few wealthy landowners could bring to the countryside.

In the following paragraphs, Goldsmith ponders upon the future of the villagers.

They cannot stay and wander freely about the countryside because all “those fenceless

fields the sons of wealth divide, / And even the bare-worn common is denied”

27

(“Deserted Village” 49). They are left neither fields to grow crops on, nor common land

to graze cattle on. Many of them therefore leave for the town. Goldsmith despises this

kind of depopulation and expresses his negative attitude towards the town. Migration to

towns would not bring relief to a villager because he will only find luxury and joy there

which are “extorted from his fellow creature’s woe” (“Deserted Village” 50) and which

are all denied to him as he is poor. Only misery and vain temptation await him in the

town. He underlines the vicious nature of the urban area by describing ‘poor houseless

shivering female’ who once led modest but peaceful life in the countryside and now

lies near her betrayer’s door and “With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, / When

idly first, ambitious of the town, / She left her wheel and robes of country brown” (50).

He knows this picture from his own experience because he saw it in the streets of

London: “These poor shivering females have once seen happier days, and been flattered

into beauty” (qtd. in Washington 79). Those who left Auburn for better prospects of life

in the town now suffer by cold and hunger at the doors of those who are responsible for

their forced exodus from the village. Another option for villagers is the exile to America

but this Goldsmith does not recommend because of the numerous dangers of Nature in

its environment. It is much different from the calm surroundings of the English villages

because of its climate, tornadoes and poisonous animals. The land and woods are wild

and in this way Goldsmith contradicts “the normal eighteenth-century concept of

America as verdant ‘garden’ where new hopes and aspirations can be realized” (Wenzl

24). In the following paragraph, Goldsmith curses the day of departure. He admits that it

was hard for the villagers to leave their native land and they wished for something

equally good ‘beyond the western main’ but they hoped in vain and were bitterly

disappointed by the conditions in the new environment. Goldsmith’s personal opinion

28

of the migration of villagers beyond the boundaries of the rural area is deprecatory and

he views towns and foreign countries as bringing only misery to the countrymen.

The poem ends with two paragraphs reinforcing Goldsmith’s arguments against

enclosure and depopulation and appealing to Poetry. He denotes luxury as cursed by

Heaven and spreading its ills not only across England but also other countries: “How do

thy potions, with insidious joy, / diffuse thy pleasures only to destroy” (“Deserted

Village” 52). Quintana observes that “all the pathos of the foregoing lines turns to a

controlled, explicit and concise anger” (1964, 213). Goldsmith continues to emphasize

the continuous character of the evil transformation of the English countryside by stating

“I see the rural virtues leave the land” (“Deserted Village” 52). This becomes a warning

for the reader to make him aware that ‘the devastation is begun’ and that if the

economic and social changes are not stopped, the image of a productive, peaceful

English village may completely disappear. As Bell declares, “it is a prophecy of

national doom and collapse” (767). Goldsmith names his period “these degenerate times

of shame” (“Deserted Village” 53) unfit for Poetry which is ‘nurse of every virtue’ and

expresses the idea that as “the exiles are compelled to make their home in a wild,

uncivilized land; so, too, is Poetry, driven from England by the shameful degeneracy

and corruption of the times” (Quintana 1964, 213). On the other hand, Wenzl adds that

as long as the voice of the poet lives on and he continues to ‘aid slighted truth’, there is

some hope for the reformation of the society. If the reader looks back to the happy days

of the village before the devastating effects of enclosure and depopulation, they will see

that “Auburn suggests that earthly harmony and perfection is possible” (25). However,

Goldsmith does not present any particular solution to the problem presented as Davie

claims, “The Deserted Village prescribes no remedy for the state of affairs it deplores,

and therefore puts no reader under obligation to do anything about it” (qtd. in Lucas 56).

29

This implies not only that the emotional response at the beginning of the poem may be

vague but also that the reader is not expressly forced to act. Goldsmith relies on the

power of his poetic images to persuade the reader to protect the pastoral character of

England and leaves the choice of the right means to accomplish this goal to him.

Goldsmith’s contribution to literature and history intertwines in The Deserted

Village. He is the critic of depopulation of English villages which is the result of the

enclosure policy of the eighteenth century. He reveals his sympathy for the rural

community and criticises its exodus to towns and to the continent of America which

according to him brings only poverty to the villagers and ruins their life emotionally. To

contrast the rural and urban area, he uses a wide range of synonyms and literary

imagery and depicts the countryside usually as proud, green and joyous whereas the

description of the town is filled with images of blackness, cold, hunger and death. The

greatest ill of the contemporary society is Luxury which spreads all over the country

and devours cottages and fields for the purpose of clearing the land for the rich to build

their manors on it. Wenzl discovers the key motif of the poem in lines 77-96 known as

“ubi sunt” which is a poetic motif underlining the transience of youth, beauty and life

which makes the poem even more pathetical and definitely evokes the emotional

response in the reader (22). The poem is regarded as a neoclassical piece, although it

bears certain features of pastoral ballads. It should not be regarded as a Romantic or

pre-Romantic poem because of its attitude towards Nature. As Wenzl interprets

Goldsmith’s attitude: “man does not thrive best in wild nature, but in nature that has

been harmonized and methodized” (24).

3.3 Analysis of The Vicar of Wakefield

The Vicar of Wakefield has always been one of the most beloved eighteenth-

30

century novels. Many readers and critics such as Lass and Butt appreciate both the story

and the style of the work. Published in 1766, four years before The Deserted Village,

the novel was immediately received with much praise, and several editions were called

for the same year. Its success was encouraged by fame of Goldsmith’s poem The

Traveller, published in 1764, but the novel itself has the qualities for which it is worth

praising. Lass enumerates three reasons of its success. It is the dramatic character of

various reversals in the life of the Primrose family, the happy ending after all family

misfortunes and Goldsmith’s fine style: “easy and fluent, mildly satiric, elegant without

being pretentious” (37). It is the narrative and stylistic simplicity of the novel which has

appealed to readers for all the years. Besides The Deserted Village, Macaulay criticises

another Goldsmith’s work when he denounces the plot of The Vicar of Wakefield as

“one of the worst that ever were constructed” (qtd. in Adelstein 315). On the contrary,

Adelstein claims that Goldsmith had control of the plot while writing. What causes the

confusion is the transformation of the theme of prudence into that of fortitude and that

Charles Primrose undergoes a personal change in the novel (316). John Butt views the

first sixteen chapters of the novel as a comedy and the next sixteen chapters as a

pathetic narrative and observes a kind of logical pattern also in distribution of the songs

and ballads in the novel (475). Regardless of Goldsmith’s intentions behind the process

of writing, he wrote skilfully and with the emphasis on the rural area. The Vicar of

Wakefield may be treated as a domestic novel which offers a valuable description of the

country life in eighteenth-century England. Goldsmith proves his genius in genre

painting and describes the countryside, prisons and roads with vivid language similar to

that of The Deserted Village.

The title of the novel suggests the occupation of the hero who is Vicar Charles

Primrose. This character is most probably inspired by Goldsmith’s father Rev. Charles

31

Goldsmith who was a parson at Lissoy. Their good relationship and Oliver’s childhood

spent in the countryside contributed to his liking for the village and its traditional

figures. The character of the parson is constitutional because he is the bearer of

innocence and local values and unites the rural society. As Goldsmith states in

Advertisement to his novel, Charles Primrose “unites in himself the three greatest

characters upon earth; he is a priest, an husbandman, and the father of a family” (“The

Vicar” 295). He gives both law and relief to his parishioners, his wife and his children.

Although he is struck by several misfortunes throughout the story, he does not lose heart

and provides support for everyone. In eighteenth-century England, keeping a curate was

a common practice in the parishes and Goldsmith refers to it by Dr. Primrose’s words:

“I also set a resolution of keeping no curate” (“The Vicar” 302). By doing so, he saves

some money of his yearly stipend of thirty-five pounds which he distributes among the

poor of his parish. Another common practice was to take in a pupil or farm the land in

order to add some money to the low stipend. Dr. Primrose does both – he decides to

“increase my [his] salary by managing a little farm” (“The Vicar” 306) and he often

refers to Miss Arabella Wilmot as his ‘charming pupil’. Each Sunday there is a mass in

the parish and the day should be dedicated to God. Bayne-Powell reveals that “in the

country the day was observed with great strictness; no unnecessary work was done of

any kind” (92), and Vicar himself views it as ‘a day of finery’. However, he reproaches

his wife and daughters for wearing pompous clothes when going to church. This

conforms to Goldsmith’s criticism of luxury. Dr. Primrose regards their “hair plastered

up with pomatum, their faces patched to taste, their trains bundled up in an heap behind,

and rustling at every motion” (“The Vicar” 314) as ‘frippery’ and states that all this

could only evoke hatred of the wives of their neighbours and he calls for plainer dress

and decency. Vicar and his relatives are depicted as a godly family living in harmony

32

with God and with each other in the friendly and peaceful neighbourhood. This creates

the image of an ideal pastoral society which is Goldsmith’s concern also in The

Deserted Village.

By describing the villagers, their feasts and relationships with vivid language

and with sympathy for their little sins of vanity or intemperance, Goldsmith offers his

readers an impression of rural peace and innocence which is in sharp contrast with the

situation in towns. The first encounter with the evil character of the urban area is

represented by the loss of the family’s fortune by “the merchant in town, in whose

hands your [Dr. Primrose’s] money was lodged” (“The Vicar” 305). All the money was

kept safe in town and now it is gone. This does not only reduce the innocent vicar’s

family to poverty but also represents the frail nature of the bond between the village and

the town. The village is deceived by the town. The town and people who come from it

are depicted in a negative way in order to persuade readers that the rural area is the

virtuous one. Second, the family moves to another neighbourhood and there comes the

description of their new landlord Squire Thornhill who was the ”one who desired to

know little more of the world than its pleasures, being particularly remarkable for his

attachment to the fair sex” (“The Vicar” 308). The vices of vanity and debauchery are

ascribed to a man of noble rank who usually lives in luxury and often visits towns. What

Goldsmith suggests is that opulence has a wicked influence on the rich and, moreover,

that this influence is already present in the countryside. Squire’s indecency affects the

country women and ruins their life which is also the case of Vicar’s daughter Olivia.

The two ladies from the town are another example of harmful influence of the town and

of the power of the rich. They are Squire’s accomplices in the attempt to lure Olivia and

Sophia to the town. Mr. Burchell knew that the two daughters would only be deceived

to prostitution and he prevents their departure to town. The town has a distinct negative

33

impact on both the country women and those who live in the urban area. Even the

innocent rural society cannot protect Olivia from being deceived by Squire Thornhill

later. Finally, Moses and Dr. Primrose are deceived when they sell their horses at the

fair in the town. The town is therefore also a place of deception, and villagers are often

reduced to beggary by false and disguised tradesmen. The family’s misfortunes are

basically caused by the villainous activities of the merchants in the town or by immoral

rural Squire. The harmful influence of luxury spreads from the urban area and corrupts

the pastoral society. However, as in The Deserted Village, there is some hope for the

reform because at the end of the novel the disguised merchant Jenkinson repents and

helps to settle some of the unpleasant matters and because the village inhabitants can

forgive each other.

In addition to the rural ideal, chapter IV provides the best outline of the idealized

rural society. It is also a reflection of the eighteenth-century traditions and way of life

because not only the village community but also Vicar’s dwelling is described. Dr.

Primrose’s neighbours are predominantly farmers and ‘strangers to opulence and

poverty’. Goldsmith claims, “As they had almost all the conveniences of life within

themselves, they seldom visited towns or cities, in search of superfluity” (“The Vicar”

312). He suggests that the villagers have everything they need and that the village is

self-sufficient without any intervention of towns. He also reports on their customs:

“They kept up the Christmas carol, sent true love-knots on Valentine morning, ate

pancakes on Shrovetide, shewed their wit on the first of April, and religiously cracked

nuts on the Michaelmas eve” (“The Vicar” 312). Dr. Primrose’s description of his

dwelling offers an insight into the eighteenth-century housing. The roof is covered with

thatch, the walls are whitewashed, and parlour and kitchen constitute a single room.

There are two bedrooms for the children and the daughters occupy one room. The same

34

applies to four sons who, regardless of their age, share a single room with two beds

which was a rather common practice in the houses of the poor and ordinary countrymen.

Duncan observes that Goldsmith is primarily describing the ‘intervals of idleness and

pleasure’, feasts and visits of the neighbours with such focus that it “amounts almost to

concentration and adds significantly to the idyllic atmosphere” (524) which in turn

supports readers’ liking for the village and its inhabitants.

An overview of contemporary pastimes and diet is provided when Dr. Primrose

enumerates several activities by which to spend leisure time in the countryside and he

condemns gambling: “Walking out, drinking tea, country dances, and forfeits shortened

the rest of the day, without the assistance of cards, as I hated all manners of gaming,

except backgammon” (“The Vicar” 304). As regards the beverages, tea became

available to almost all parts of England in the eighteenth century and is often drunk also

by the Primrose family, although they are famous for their gooseberry-wine. Their diet

consists mainly of the agricultural plant products; venison and poultry, such as goose

with dumplings at neighbour Flamborough’s on Michaelmas eve, are served

occasionally. Sugar is already introduced to the countryside because the vicar’s little

sons are rewarded by a lump of sugar for their proper behaviour.

The issue of crime and punishment is touched upon several times by Goldsmith

in The Vicar of Wakefield. Dr. Primrose refuses to consent to Squire’s marriage and

because he is unable to pay the annual rent to him as Squire is his landlord, he is

threatened by “driving” which is an Irish term for the way in which a landlord in Ireland

enforces payment from a tenant (“The Vicar” 417). The punishment for Dr. Primrose’s

resistance and inability to pay is the driving his cattle away and taking him to the county

gaol by the officers of justice. Although his arm is injured and his family is in need, he

remains determined not to retreat from his attitude towards Squire and his marriage. He

35

defends honour of his daughter and thus protects the rural virtues in general. The

interior of the prison is described as large but cold, paved with stone, prisoners are

allowed only straw to lie on and at certain period of the day both felons and debtors

gathered in one room. Each prisoner had a separate cell to be locked in at night (“The

Vicar” 421). To Vicar’s surprise, the atmosphere is cheerful: “The prisoners seemed all

employed in one common design, that of forgetting thought in merriment or clamour”

(“The Vicar” 421). Bayne-Powell confirms that “prisons were noisome abodes of

iniquity where innocent and guilty alike were herded together” (xii).

Besides the imprisonment for the unpaid rent, Goldsmith mentions the crime of

kidnapping. Dr. Primrose’s daughter Sophia is kidnapped by a man driving in a chaise

when she and her mother are “taking a walk together on the great road a little way out

of the village” (“The Vicar” 436). Sophia is subjected to violence when she moves out

of the safety of her village. Roads were dangerous in eighteenth-century England also

because of the highway robbery. Bayne-Powell reports that at the beginning of the

century few women travelled without male escort (299) and countrymen travelled

mostly on Sunday “to escape the attentions of highwaymen, who never took the road on

Sunday” (92). Goldsmith’s general opinion on the penal law of his period is expressed

in Dr.Primrose’s critical speech in prison. He does not approve of the death penalty for

stealing, although he agrees with the capital punishment for murder. He suggests that

people should rather be reformed than imprisoned because the conditions in English

prisons make criminals even worse than they were before the imprisonment (“The

Vicar” 430).

The Vicar of Wakefield might be viewed as greatly influenced by Goldsmith’s

Irish cultural background and life in England. His experiences from travelling through

Europe are reflected in George’s narrative. He went through the occupation of an usher,

36

a hack writer at Grub Street and a companion of Ned Thornhill in London. While

travelling through Europe, he tried to make a living from teaching English to the

Dutchmen, playing music in the streets of Flanders, and accompanying a young

gentleman on his Grand Tour. He finally ended up as a strolling actor in England. This

account largely corresponds to the occupations Goldsmith himself practiced. George

usually met with apathy or arrogance of the foreigners. He states, “I regarded myself as

one of those vile things that nature designed should be thrown by into her lumber room,

there to perish in obscurity” (“The Vicar” 393), which may remind readers of

Goldsmith’s own awareness of his unattractive appearance and of his life’s vanity that

he sometimes felt. The general impression of this autobiographical part is that although

a gifted countryman tries to make his living in town or abroad, the town remains hostile

and cannot appreciate his virtues. George finally finds his happiness in the countryside

after the marriage with Miss Wilmot.

In conclusion, The Vicar of Wakefield is a domestic novel with distinct sentiment

for the rural area. It depicts not only the society and customs of the eighteenth-century

English village but also suggests that the village is more virtuous than the town because

it provides an innocent and safe place for villagers to live in. Davie points out “how

Goldsmith describes Nature and the village by images of fragility – especially the

blooming of fruits and flowers” in The Deserted Village (qtd. in Goldstein 358). In

relation to the novel, I would like to point out that flower imagery appears in the names

of the two main characters. This imagery serves to reveal the contrast of the rural and

urban environment. Dr. Primrose is the representative of the village and his parish and

bears ‘rose’ in his name which is a symbol of beauty and love. On the other hand,

Squire Thornhill represents the nobility and luxury of the towns, although he lives in the

countryside, and thorn in his name symbolizes pain and sin. As the rose and thorns are

37

one, the innocence of the village intertwines with the harmful influence of the town.

This influence in the form of corruption of the country gentry spreads through the

countryside and affects the life of villagers. This interpretation corresponds to

Goldsmith’s distrust of the great which is expressed in The Deserted Village. He sides

with ordinary countrymen and regards them as satisfied self-sufficient people who can

manage everything without the means of towns which cause only troubles to them.

Quintana observes that the setting of the novel may be seen as “a late example of the

classical and medieval ‘locus amoenus’” (1973, 60) which stands for an idealized place

of safety and comfort. Goldsmith seems to be dealing with the eighteenth-century

concept of longing for lost innocence and attempt to create an earthly utopia, and this

idea applies also to The Deserted Village (Wenzl 25).

38

4. CONCLUSION

The aim of this thesis is to explore which social and historic facts are reflected in

Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village and The Vicar of Wakefield and whether his Irish

origins had some influence on his writing. In conclusion, Goldsmith primarily touches

upon the issue of enclosure and depopulation and blames the rich and the spreading

corrupting influence of towns for the decline of the countryside and its inhabitants. The

fact that he defends the village and despises the town is expressed in both works not

only by the issues presented but is also observable on the lexical level because he uses

vivid language and name significance to emphasize the different nature of these areas.

His Irish cultural background is reflected in admiration for the middle class and the

clergymen, which is caused by the fact that there was no such class in Ireland and that

he had a good relationship with his father who was a clergyman. The link between these

two aspects is that an ordinary English parson could be viewed as a middle-class man.

Goldsmith’s distrust of the great most probably stems from typical country prejudice

against the wealthy in Ireland. The influence of Goldsmith’s Anglo-Irish view is

obvious in both The Deserted Village and The Vicar of Wakefield. Moreover, he proves

his literary talent to rouse the reader’s emotions and makes him sympathize with the

pastoral environment when he uses rhetorical and descriptive devices which depict the

village as an ideal place to live in.

The theoretical part of the thesis shows that the major changes of the eighteenth

century were the improved living conditions that resulted in the increased population

and the change in the land usage brought about by the enclosure movement. English

villages were affected mostly by enclosure and depopulation. There is no doubt that the

Agricultural Revolution started a series of events that led to the transformation of the

English countryside. The growing demand of the increasing population for enough

39

subsistence called for more effective growing and breeding methods which resulted into

enclosing the common land. Many villagers were deprived of their strip of land and

reduced to poverty. Many left for towns in the search of work but found hunger and

death there. Oliver Goldsmith was aware of this because he wandered through both

England’s towns and villages and saw the consequences himself. In his writing, he

clearly blames luxury and rich men’s greediness for the doom of small rural

communities. According to him, the traditional way of life in the countryside is the best

for the villagers and the socio-economic changes of the eighteenth century are rather

destroying the rural virtues than improving the life in the English countryside.

On the other hand, Goldsmith records some of the changes and facts which have

played their part throughout the following centuries in creating the nation of England as

we know it today. This includes the famous practice of English tea-drinking which

originated in the eighteenth century and is often enjoyed by the Primrose family. He

enumerates several contemporary customs practised by the Primroses’ neighbours. That

is an interesting account because all of those are still found in England nowadays.

The character of a parson is important in Goldsmith’s works because he is a law-

giver to his family, parish and to the whole village. He appears as a constitutional

character both in The Deserted Village and The Vicar of Wakefield and Dr. Primrose is

the virtuous opposite to Squire Thornhill who represents the harmful influence of the

opulence and corruptive power of the town. The town is depicted in a negative way by

Dr. Primrose’s experience of the deceit at the fair and by the false ladies from the town.

Goldsmith insists on his pastoral ideal and on the virtuous character of the villagers by

which he conforms to the eighteenth-century concept of longing for lost innocence. He

locates an ideal innocent place in the English countryside, whether it is Auburn of The

Deserted Village or Dr. Primrose’s parish.

40

5. WORKS CITED

Adelstein, Michael E. “Duality of Theme in The Vicar of Wakefield.” College English

22.5 (1961): 315-321. JSTOR. Web. 29 Jan. 2011.

Bayne-Powell, Rosamond. English Country Life in the Eighteenth Century. London:

Murray, 1935. Print.

Bell, Howard J., Jr. “The Deserted Village and Goldsmith`s Social Doctrines.” PMLA

59.3 (1944): 747-72. JSTOR. Web. 8 Nov. 2010.

Butt, John Everett. The Mid-Eighteenth Century. Ed. Geoffrey Carnall. Oxford:

Clarendon P, 1979. Print.

Duncan, Jeffrey L. “The Rural Ideal in Eighteenth-Century Fiction.” Studies in English

Literature, 1500–1900 8.3 (1968): 517-35. JSTOR. Web. 29 Jan. 2011.

“Enclose.” The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1975. Print.

Goldsmith, Oliver. “The Deserted Village.” The Works of Oliver Goldsmith. Vol. 1.

Poetical Works. Dramas. The Vicar of Wakefield. Ed. Peter Cunningham.

London: Murray, 1854. 39-61. Print.

---. “The Vicar of Wakefield.” The Works of Oliver Goldsmith. Vol. 1. Poetical Works.

Dramas. The Vicar of Wakefield. Ed. Peter Cunningham. London: Murray, 1854.

293-468. Print.

Goldstein, Laurence. “The Auburn Syndrome: Change and Loss in The Deserted

Village and Wordsworth’s Grasmere.” ELH 40.3 (1973): 352-71. JSTOR. Web.

14 Feb. 2011.

Lass, Abraham H. A Student’s Guide to 50 British Novels. New York: Washington

Square P, 1966. Print.

Lucas, J. England and Englishness: Ideas of Nationhood in English Poetry (1688 –

1900). London: Hogarth P, 1990. Print.

41

Mathias, Peter. “The Social Structure in the Eighteenth Century: A Calculation by

Joseph Massie.” The Economic History Review 10.1 (1957): 30-45. JSTOR.

Web. 7 Feb. 2011.

Patton, Julia. The English Village: A Literary Study (1750–1850). New York:

Macmillan, 1919. Print.

Plumb, J. H. England in the Eighteenth Century (1714–1815). Harmondsworth:

Penguin, 1963. Print.

Quintana, Ricardo. “The Deserted Village. Its Logical and Rhetorical Elements.”

College English 26.3 (1964): 204-06 + 211-14. JSTOR. Web. 11 Mar. 2011.

---. “The Vicar of Wakefield: The Problem of Critical Approach.” Modern Philology

71.1 (1973): 59-65. JSTOR. Web. 10 Nov. 2010.

Seitz, Robert W. “The Irish Background of Goldsmiths Social and Political Thought.”

PMLA 52.2 (1937): 405-11. JSTOR. Web. 21 Feb. 2011.

Thompson, S.J. “Parliamentary Enclosure, Property, Population, and the Decline of

Classical Republicanism in the Eighteenth-Century Britain.” The Historical

Journal 51.3 (2008): 621-42. JSTOR. Web. 2 Feb. 2011.

Trevelyan, G. M. British History in the Nineteenth Century (1782–1901). London:

Longmans, 1922. Print.

---. English Social History. A Survey of Six Centuries, Chaucer to Queen Victoria.

Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964. Print.

Washington, I. Oliver Goldsmith: A Biography. New York: Putnam, 1861. Print.

Weitzman, Arthur J. “Eighteenth-Century London: Urban Paradise or Fallen City?”

Journal of the History of Ideas 36.3 (1975): 469-80. JSTOR. Web. 11 Feb. 2011.

Wenzl, Michael J. “Re-Populating The Deserted Village.” The Bulletin of the Rocky

42

Mountain Modern Language Association 28.1 (1974): 18-25. JSTOR. Web. 12

Mar. 2011.

43

RÉSUMÉ

The thesis provides an overview of social and historical facts about a traditional

eighteenth-century English village and explores two literary works of Oliver Goldsmith,

namely his poem The Deserted Village and the novel The Vicar of Wakefield, in order to

find literary reference to the facts presented. The impact of the Agricultural Revolution

on the rural society and the issues of enclosure and depopulation are discussed.

Goldsmith’s Irish cultural background is taken into account while examining his

relationship to the rural area and observations on the lexical level are also made to

reveal Goldsmith’s positive attitude towards the village. The thesis concludes that

Goldsmith is primarily concerned with the village and its inhabitants in his works and

that he blames the rich and luxury in general for the gradual decline of the English

countryside and for the impending disappearance of rural virtues from the land. His

Irish origins influenced his works in terms of the preference for the rural environment to

the town and in terms of the implying Irish distrust of the rich into his works. In

Goldsmith’s worldview, the village is an ideal place to live in and it does not need any

form of intervention from the town or its inhabitants.

44

SLOVAK RÉSUMÉ / RESUMÉ

Bakalárska práca ponúka prehľad základných údajov o typickej anglickej dedine

osemnásteho storočia, a to z hľadiska sociologického i historického. Práca skúma dve

literárne diela Olivera Goldsmitha, konkrétne jeho báseň The Deserted Village a román

The Vicar of Wakefield s cieľom nájsť odkazy na prezentované fakty v uvedených

literárnych dielach. Ďalej práca pojednáva o vplyve poľnohospodárskej revolúcie na

vidiecke spoločenstvo a o problematike ohradzovania pozemkov (tzv. enclosure)

a depopulácie vidieka. Pri skúmaní vzťahu medzi Goldsmithom a vidiekom sa berie do

úvahy aj jeho Írske zázemie. Niekoľko zmienok o autorovej lexike a používaní slovných

prostriedkov poukazuje na autorov pozitívny vzťah k dedine. Záverom práce je

vyjadrenie, že Goldsmith sa vo svojich dielach prednostne zaoberá dedinou a jej

obyvateľmi a odsudzuje boháčov a prepych vo všeobecnosti za postupný úpadok

anglického vidieku a za nastávajúce miznutie pozitívnych hodnôt vidieka z krajiny.

Írsky pôvod ovplyvnil autorovu tvorbu a vidno to na uprednostňovaní vidieka pred

mestom a na zahrnutí tradičnej Írskej nedôvery voči boháčom do svojich diel. Podľa

Goldsmitha je dedina ideálnym miestom pre život a žiadny zásah zo strany mesta alebo

jeho obyvateľov nie je potrebný.