Oliver Goldsmith | |
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_-_Oliver_Goldsmith_(1728%25E2%2580%25931774)_-_129929_-_National_Trust.jpg) Portrait (c. 1770) by SirJoshua Reynolds | |
| Born | Oliver Goldsmith (1728-11-10)10 November 1728 |
| Died | 4 April 1774(1774-04-04) (aged 45) London, England |
| Resting place | Temple Church, London |
| Pen name | James Willington |
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| Language | English |
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| Period | Georgian era |
| Genre | Social commentary,sentimentalism, literary realism, comedy |
| Literary movement | Classicism,The Club |
| Years active | 1760–1773 |
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| Partner | Mary Horneck (1766–1774) |
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Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was anAnglo-Irish poet, novelist, playwright, andhack writer.[1] He produced literary works in a variety of genres and is regarded among the most versatile writers of theGeorgian era.[2] His works are known for theirrealistic depictions ofBritish society, and hiscomedy plays for the English stage are considered second in importance only to those of playwrightWilliam Shakespeare.[3] Credited with introducingsentimentalism inEnglish literature in 18th-century Great Britain,[4] several of Goldsmith's publications are popularclassics of the period, including his only novel,The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), and the comedy playShe Stoops to Conquer (1773).[5][6]
He wrote the playThe Good-Natur'd Man (1768) and is additionally thought by commentators such asWashington Irving to have written the children's novelThe History of Little Goody Two-Shoes (1765), one of the earliest classical works ofchildren's literature.[7] Goldsmith also produced a number of poems during his career, such asThe Deserted Village (1770), and contributed to the flourishing ofidyllic poetry during the Georgian era.[1]
After spending his early years in Dublin, he settled in London in 1756 where he met many of the writers who shaped his later career, and the majority of his works were written after this period. His first works were published in hisThe Citizen of the World series in 1760, often under the pseudonym James Willington. Beginning in the 1760s, he maintained a close friendship withSamuel Johnson, another prolific English writer who played a significant role in promoting his poems. His personal mentorship and guidance resulted in Goldsmith expanding his literary writings to include political works.[8] This long-term collaboration between the two authors has been described as "one of the most fruitful intellectual partnerships in 18th-century English letters."[9] In 1764, he became one of the earliest members of Johnson's literary intellectual circle, popularly known asThe Club. Although Goldsmith wrote extensively to supplement his income, he was constantly in financial debt and regularly suffered from ill health. He died in 1774 in London at the age of 45, and was buried inTemple Church.
During the 19th century, Goldsmith became regarded as a seminal figure of sentimental literature, having influenced later English authorsCharles Dickens,Jane Austen,George Eliot, andMary Shelley, all of whom mentioned his characters in their own novels. He continues to be held in high regard in his native Ireland and Great Britain, with many statues, libraries, schools, and streets named after him. Since his death, hismagnum opusThe Vicar of Wakefield has retained its reputation as one of the best-known novels of 18th-century English literature, and his playShe Stoops to Conquer remains a popular study in theater classes.
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Goldsmith's birth date and year are not known with certainty. According to theLibrary of Congress authority file, he told a biographer that he was born on 10 November 1728. The location of his birthplace is also uncertain. He was born either in thetownland of Pallas, nearBallymahon,County Longford, Ireland, where his father was theAnglicancurate of the parish ofForgney, or at the residence of his maternal grandparents, at theSmith Hill House nearElphin inCounty Roscommon, where his grandfather Oliver Jones was a clergyman and master of the Elphin diocesan school, and where Oliver studied.[10]
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When Goldsmith was two years old, his father was appointed therector of the parish of "Kilkenny West" inCounty Westmeath. The family moved to theparsonage at Lissoy, betweenAthlone and Ballymahon, and continued to live there until his father's death in 1747.
In 1744, Goldsmith went up toTrinity College Dublin. His tutor wasTheaker Wilder. Neglecting his studies in theology and law, he fell to the bottom of his class. In 1747, along with four other undergraduates, he was expelled for a riot in which they attempted to storm theMarshalsea Prison.[11] He was graduated in 1749 as a Bachelor of Arts, but without the discipline or distinction that might have gained him entry to a profession in the church or the law. His education seemed to have given him mainly a taste for fine clothes, cards, singing Irish airs, and playing the flute. He lived for a short time with his mother, tried various professions without success, studied medicine desultorily at theUniversity of Edinburgh from 1752 to 1755, and set out on a walking tour ofFlanders, France, Switzerland, andNorthern Italy, living by his wits (busking with his flute).[citation needed]
He settled in London in 1756, where he briefly held various jobs, including anapothecary's assistant and an usher of a school. Perennially in debt and addicted to gambling, Goldsmith produced a massive output as ahack writer onGrub Street[13][14][15][16] for the publishers of London, but his few painstaking works earned him the company ofSamuel Johnson, with whom he was a founding member of "The Club". There, through fellow Club memberEdmund Burke, he made the acquaintance ofSir George Savile, who would later arrange a job for him atThornhill Grammar School in Yorkshire. The combination of his literary work and his dissolute lifestyle ledHorace Walpole to give him the epithet "inspired idiot". During this period he used the pseudonym "James Willington" (the name of a fellow student at Trinity) to publish his 1758 translation of the autobiography of theHuguenotJean Marteilhe.[citation needed]
Published in 1759, this essay surveys the condition of letters and education in contemporary Europe and critiques the commercial pressures shaping the literary marketplace. Scholars have noted close parallels withJames Ralph’s 1758 pamphletThe Case of Authors by Profession or Trade, Stated—particularly on contempt for paid authorship, theatrical gatekeeping, and writers’ dependence on booksellers—and suggest the two writers may have discussed such matters while both were associated withThe Monthly Review.[17]
In 1760 Goldsmith began to publish a series of letters in thePublic Ledger under the titleThe Citizen of the World which brought him fame.[18] Purportedly written by a Chinese traveller in England by the name of Lien Chi, they used this fictional outsider's perspective to comment ironically and at times moralistically on British society and manners. It was inspired by the earlier essay seriesPersian Letters byMontesquieu.[citation needed]
Goldsmith wrote this 160-line romantic ballad in 1765. The hero and heroine are Edwin, a youth without wealth or power, and Angelina, the daughter of a lord "beside the Tyne". Angelina spurns many wooers, but refuses to make plain her love for young Edwin. "Quite dejected with my scorn", Edwin disappears and becomes a hermit. One day, Angelina turns up at his cell in boy's clothes and, not recognising him, tells him her story. Edwin then reveals his true identity, and the lovers never part again. The poem is notable for its interesting portrayal of a hermit, who is fond of the natural world and his wilderness solitude but maintains a gentle, sympathetic demeanour toward other people. In keeping with eremitical tradition, however, Edwin the Hermit claims to "spurn the [opposite] sex". This poem appears under the title of "A Ballad" sung by the character of Mr. Burchell in Chapter 8 of Goldsmith's novel,The Vicar of Wakefield.[19]
This classic novel, published in 1766, tells the story of a devout and benevolent vicar, Charles Primrose, and his family who are reduced to poverty and prison. Dr. Primrose serves as the narrator. The novel includes an aristocratic villain, impersonation, abduction, and betrayal while exploring themes of faith, humility, social class, and the importance of family and community.[citation needed]
In the 1760s Goldsmith witnessed the demolition of an ancient village and the destruction of its farms to clear land to become a wealthy man's garden. His poemThe Deserted Village, published in 1770, expresses a fear that the destruction of villages and the conversion of land from productive agriculture to ornamentallandscape gardens would ruin thepeasantry.[20]
The satirical play, "She Stoops to Conquer", was first performed in 1773.It is a story of love, mistaken identities, and social etiquette, known for its wit, class-based satire, and enduring characters. It is still regularly performed and has been adapted for film and television.
Goldsmith has sometimes been credited with writing the classic children's taleThe History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, though this cannot be proved.[24]
In hisLife,Washington Irving states that Goldsmith was between 5'4" and 5'6" in height, not heavily built but quite muscular and with rather plain features. In character, he had a lively sense of fun, was totally guileless, and never happier than when in the light-hearted company of children. The money that he sporadically earned was often frittered away or happily given away to the next good cause that presented itself so that any financial security tended to be fleeting and short-lived.[25] Goldsmith's talents were unreservedly recognised by Samuel Johnson, whose patronage – somewhat resented by Boswell – aided his eventual recognition in the literary world and the world of drama.[citation needed]
Goldsmith was described by contemporaries as prone to envy, a congenial but impetuous and disorganised personality who once planned to emigrate to America but failed because he missed his ship. At some point around this time, he worked at Thornhill Grammar School, later basing Squire Thornhill (inThe Vicar of Wakefield) on his benefactor Sir George Savile and certainly spending time with eminent scientist Rev. John Mitchell, whom he probably knew from London. Mitchell sorely missed good company, which Goldsmith naturally provided in spades.Thomas De Quincey wrote of him "All the motion of Goldsmith's nature moved in the direction of the true, the natural, the sweet, the gentle".[26]
Later researchers have speculated that Goldsmith may have suffered fromcolour blindness, a condition which was not described until years after Goldsmith's death. Munro MacLennan described several instances from Goldsmith's life which suggest that he had an inability to distinguish between certain colours.[27][28]
Goldsmith was an Anglican,[29] and famously said "as I take my shoes from the shoemaker, and my coat from the taylor, so I take my religion from the priest".[30]
Thomas Hurst wrote that Goldsmith "recognised with joy the existence and perfections of a Deity. For the Christian revelation also, he was always understood to have a profound respect – knowing that it was the source of our best hopes and noblest expectations."[31]
Goldsmith's premature death in 1774 may have been partly due to his own misdiagnosis of a kidney infection. He was buried inTemple Church in London. The inscription reads; "HERE LIES/OLIVER GOLDSMITH". A monument was originally raised for him at the site of his burial, but it was destroyed in an air raid in 1941. A monument to him survives in the centre ofBallymahon, also inWestminster Abbey with anepitaph written by Samuel Johnson.
"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."[citation needed] Epitaph written byDr. Johnson, translated from the original Latin.
Goldsmith is regarded as one of the most versatile writers of the Georgian era, who contributed to the development of sentimentalism in English literature in 18th-century Great Britain,[2][4] and his plays are considered second in importance only to those of William Shakespeare.[3] Among his papers was found the prospectus of an encyclopedia, to be called theUniversal dictionary of the arts and sciences. He wished this to be the British equivalent of theEncyclopédie and it was to include comprehensive articles bySamuel Johnson,Edmund Burke,Adam Smith,Edward Gibbon,Sir Joshua Reynolds,Sir William Jones,Fox andDr. Burney. The project, however, was not realised due to Goldsmith's death.[32] His work influenced several English authors of the 19th century, includingCharles Dickens,Jane Austen, andMary Shelley, who mentioned his fictional characters in their own novels.[5]
His life was dramatised in the 1940 Australian radio playA Citizen of the World.[36]
Two characters in the 1951 comedyThe Lavender Hill Mob quote the same line from Goldsmith's poemThe Traveller – a subtle joke, because the film's plot involves the recasting of stolen gold.
During the opening credits of theSky One adaptation of SirTerry Pratchett's Christmas-like story "The Hogfather", a portrait of Goldsmith is shown as part of a hall of memorials to those "inhumed" by the "Ankh-Morpork Assassins' Guild".
In the 1925 novelThe Painted Veil byW. Somerset Maugham, the last words of the poemAn Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, "The dog it was that died", are the dying words of bacteriologist Walter Fane, one of the primary characters in the novel. And using the title "Elegy for a Mad Dog" is an episode of Marcus Welby, M.D. (1971, Season 2, Episode 21).
TheTom Stoppard playThe Dog It Was That Died takes its title from the same poem.
In theNabokov novelPale Fire, a central character's house is situated between "Goldsworth" (the name of an estate) and "Wordsmith University". Crossing these two names yields the names of the poetsWordsworth and Goldsmith; one of the narrators refers to this as the "witty exchange of syllables invoking the two masters of the heroic couplet."[37]
In the playMarx in Soho byHoward Zinn, Marx makes a reference to Goldsmith's poemThe Deserted Village.[38]
InThe Waste Land,T. S. Eliot parodies Goldsmith's songWhen lovely woman stoops to folly.[39]
The characters of 'Edwin' and 'Angelina' in Gilbert and Sullivan'sTrial by Jury were a reference to Goldsmith's poemThe Hermit.[40]
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