Transcript The Village Schoolmaster Goldsmith

The Village
Schoolmaster
Goldsmith
• This is not really a whole
poem but an extract from
Goldsmith's long poem
The Deserted Village,
which runs to 430 lines. In
the opening line of the
complete poem, Goldsmith
names the village as
"sweet Auburn" - but the
original on which it is
modelled was, according
to the poet's sister, Lissoy,
in County Westmeath,
Ireland.
• This passage is a portrait of
a teacher at the village
school. The poet is looking
back on a time when the
village was lively and active
whereas now no one lives
there. (Goldsmith's readers
knew this as a reality changes in land ownership,
coupled with new job
opportunities in machine
production, had caused
people to move from the
country to the cities, leaving
many villages without
people.)
• In doing so, Goldsmith
represents the past as a kind
of golden age - a better,
kinder and happier time,
certainly. Here he expresses
admiration for the village
teacher. He lists his personal
qualities and gives details of
the master's learning. But
above all he shows how the
schoolmaster belonged in his
place - having the affection
and respect of the whole
community.
The poem in detail
• Goldsmith identifies the site of
the school, in the way he
might point it out to a visitor,
as beside a fence ("straggling"
perhaps, because no-one
maintains it now). "Noisy
mansion" is partly ironic - the
school building would be
modest, not really a "mansion"
(a luxurious house) except to
the teacher and scholars, who
would be used to tiny cottages
or hovels.
• The teacher is outwardly
strict, and the scholars learn
to respond to his moods
(some things do not change
much). But he is really kind.
Among his accomplishments
are literacy ("he could write")
and numeracy ("and cipher").
He could measure distances
on charts, calculate dates and
forecast tides. People believe
that he can "gauge" (survey
land or estimate its area) - but
we do not know if the belief is
justified. Most impressive, the
village parson recognized his
ability to argue.
• The less educated
country people were full
of wonder that "one small
head could carry" so
much. To the reader, his
learning will seem quite
limited, but also not
especially academic, as
we would now call it.
Much of what the teacher
knows or is rumoured to
know is of immediate
practical usefulness - like
working out dates, tides
and land areas.
The poet's
method
• The form of this poem
is in a long sequence
of the kind that we call
discursive - it moves
from one mini-subject
to another, in a
carefully-organized
whole.
• The other feature is a very
delicate irony. Goldsmith is
sincere in his admiration,
and he does think that the
teacher is a good and
worthy man. But he reveals
that this object of the
villagers' wonder was really
quite limited in his
achievements. The villagers
think it marvellous that he
can write and count, for
example - but this tells us
more about them than about
him.
• The great importance of the
parson as a judge of ability
appears, too. (If the parson
says it, then it must be
true.) Most revealing is the
way that the schoolmaster
impressed people in
argument - by using "words
of learned length and
thundering sound". (This
could almost be a criticism
of poetic diction, too.) That
is, he did not win by logic or
reason, but through using
words that baffled the
hearer
• There are still people who
find this impressive, but
nowadays we are often
unconvinced by those who
hide a weak argument
behind impressivesounding words. Moreover,
the fact that most of the
village people seem to
remain ignorant rustics
may mean that the
schoolmaster has never
succeeded in passing on
much of his learning to the
scholars.
• We also note the
formal use of contrast
- one pair of lines
beginning "Full well"
shows how the
scholars would know
when to laugh (even
pretending to find his
jokes funny), while the
next pair shows how
they knew when he
was in a more severe
mood.