A Critical Analysis of The Village Schoolmaster by O. Goldsmith - Essay Example

The Village Schoolmaster” by Oliver Goldsmith Poetry has a beautiful ability to pull ideas and emotionsout from the depths of one’s being with only a few short lines and well-developed imagery. The effect of a poem depends on the ability of the poet to present their ideas with strong material impressions. This effectively paints a mental image for the reader (or listener) that cannot be denied and therefore begins to conjure up a sense of sympathy with the emotional response the poet has to the subject. Poets also use more technical tools such as meter, rhyme, lexicon (word choice) and syntax (word order or format) to elicit a specific response. While poetry, like literature, can be used for a variety of purposes, poetry such as that created by Oliver Goldsmith in his poem “The Village Schoolmaster” concentrates on illustrating a specific emotion. This is made explicitly apparent when one takes the work within its original context as a portion of a much longer work entitled “The Deserted Village.” According to an article posted by the University of Buckingham (“The Village Schoolteacher”, 2007), this longer work painted a picture of what is believed to be an amalgamation of a variety of small villages Goldsmith remembered, presenting a single image of a deserted town left behind as the result of privatization and loss of their lands. This longer work illustrates the importance of the fence mentioned in the first line of “The Village Schoolmaster” as newly privatized land was ‘enclosed’ in the name of progress: “what Goldsmith thought was going on is clear from what he says elsewhere in the poem: ‘Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide’ (307)” (“The Village Schoolmaster”, 2007). Regardless of whether one is familiar with the longer work from which this poem is taken, Goldsmith’s poem “The Village Schoolmaster” evokes the same sense of sad nostalgia for something lost forever within itself through Goldsmith’s mastery of imagery, meter, rhyme, lexicon and implied meaning. Goldsmith employs imagery within the very first lines of his poem to help set up the scene he wishes to invoke: “Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way / With Blossom’d furze unprofitably gay” (1-2). The fence is further ahead, indicating a division between the land upon which the speaker is standing and the land upon which the deserted village still stands. That it is deserted is indicated by the overwhelming blossoming furze which is unprofitable because no one is left to enjoy it. However, it continues to blossom, remaining beautiful in itself regardless if anyone is available to take pleasure in its existence. This dual use of the furze begins to establish the emotional content of the poem, at once sad and lonely while also beautiful and treasured. To shift subject from the present to the past, Goldsmith tells his listener, “There, in his mansion, skill’d to rule, / The village master taught his little school” (3-4), a spot that has now been forgot (25-26). The conflicting images of the ‘mansion’ and the ‘little school’ in these early lines build an architectural metaphor illustrating the difference between the ideas of the people of the present, in which the village schoolmaster might not have seemed quite so elegant, and the past, in which he was seen to be a giant among men. All this is also placed against the concept that the spot is no longer identifiable as the place where the schoolmaster once ruled. From here, the poet is able to move on to his true focus, the portrait of the schoolmaster himself. The majority of the poem focuses not so much on the image of the town as it was, or even on the schoolhouse as the poet remembered it, but rather upon the schoolmaster himself, who was once considered nearly a god of the village that has now lost even its name. This image is presented not so much as a physical description, but rather as his presence affected the people around him. “Well had the boding tremblers learn’d to trace / The days disasters in his morning face; / Full well they laugh’d with counterfeited glee, / At all his jokes, for many a joke had he:” (7-10). One can clearly see the students shaking in dreadful anticipation of what they might be expected to learn today glancing into the face of their schoolmaster for signs of a good or bad mood. Likewise, their laughter at jokes they don’t understand indicates both a fearful respect for the man as well as a well-meaning intent of the master. This youthful fear of the mentor also seems to be a thing more of the past than the present, even to Goldsmith, who seems to be commenting on the changing social role of the schoolmaster as the population shifted from the small villages to the larger towns and cities, where people had become more cynical. More than just being the master of the classroom, though, the schoolmaster is portrayed as one of the masters of the town, as his aspect is described among the townspeople themselves: “While words of learned length and thund’ring sound / Amazed the gazing rustics rang’d around; / And still they gaz’d and still the wonder grew, / That one small head could carry all he knew” (21-24). These lines illustrate how the schoolmaster was viewed by the ‘rustics’ who hadn’t his level of education and therefore became more and more amazed by the tremendous wisdom the schoolmaster seemed to command. The schoolmaster’s importance in the world outside his schoolhouse is thus portrayed to be something much greater than the impression of the city schoolmaster. His words are taken to mean something, his knowledge is respected and his opinions are given weight. The poem is further written in a steady pentameter, giving the poem a regular cadence that at once soothes and energizes. Pentameter refers to the five beats, or syllabic stresses, given to each line. This can be seen in any line within the poem, such as “The village all declar’d how much he knew” (15). In this line, the following syllables are given emphasis in a normal reading: vil, all, clar’d, much, knew. Each of these stressed syllables is separated from the others by an equal number of unstressed syllables that give the reading a sing-song type cadence. This cadence tends to remind people, particularly those with English as a first language, of the nursery songs they sang when young. In this format, it introduces to an even greater extent the concept that Goldsmith is telling a story from the long-long ago in which people’s lives were easier, more concrete and predictable. At the same time this nostalgic chant around the fire is being delivered, the pull of the next stress tends to move the reader ever forward throughout the poem, anxious to learn what occurs next. This marching, energetic meter is augmented by the rhyme scheme, which, together, creates heroic couplets, a favorite of the time period in which Goldsmith wrote and a recognizable form to his intended audience. Heroic couplets are characterized by iambic pentameter and two consecutive end rhymes: “Full well the busy whisper, circling round, / Convey’d the dismal tidings when he frown’d:” (11-12). In this way, each two line statement becomes a complete thought in itself as can be seen in the above example where it can be seen that the students tried to help each other figure out the cause for the master’s frown and/or to stay out of his way on a given day. These closed couplets enable Goldsmith to change thoughts often, although each change in thought continues to develop the description of the schoolmaster in a little more detail or in a different aspect of village life. In addition, the heroic couplet further introduces the idea of a visit to the idealistic past. The lexicon used in the poem is formal yet not overly literary so as not to give the poem an unnatural sense of importance. This formal tone can perhaps best be seen in lines 9 and 10, where there is an educated, yet not too literary discussion regarding the nervous laughter of the students: “Full well they laugh’d with counterfeited glee, / At all his jokes, for many a joke had he.” While the poem is written by an educated individual, and is intended to come across that way, it does not condescend in an obvious way to the lesser educated individual that once lived in the village. At no point does Goldsmith allow the poem to sink into colloquial language that might lose its meaning with the passage of time or an alternate location. However, some regional language is used that might occasionally require some definition for those who are not familiar with the English countryside. For instance, the term ‘furze’ used in line 2 is not a commonly used term in many parts of the world. However, the way it is used in the line, “With blossom’d furze unprofitably gay”, allows the meaning to be inferred from the context in which it is employed. The formal tone is also introduced in the word order introduced throughout the poem, in which inversions play a great role in conveying a sense of education without condescension. “For e’en though vanquish’d he could argue still” (20) provides an example of this inverted use. Normal speech would indicate he could argue even when he’s been vanquished. In addition to assisting the rhyme scheme and meter, this mode of speaking introduces a nostalgic charm to the poem, emphasizing the more formal modes of conversation used in a not so distant past. In addition, it takes an educated individual to understand the gentle jokes that are included within the poem regarding the grand position of the school master. These are introduced through a subtle irony as the author illustrates the various types of knowledge that impress the villagers. “’Twas certain he could write, and cipher too: / Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, / And e’en the story ran that he could gauge.” (16-18). While this list of things the schoolmaster can do seems impressive, his knowledge base is actually revealed to be quite small when compared to contemporary standards within the larger towns. The schoolmaster can read and write, do simple arithmetic and had some experience with science which seems highly intelligent to the villagers, but is revealed from a city perspective to be among the least that should be expected of a person claiming to be educated, once again bringing to mind the ‘rustic’ nature of the village school as it compared with Goldsmith’s contemporary audience. This concept is further brought into focus as Goldsmith mentions that the schoolmaster’s high station is lost forever with the line “But past is all his fame” (25), not only in terms of the abandoned village, but also within the minds and hearts of the children and the adults of the larger towns and cities. Through language choice, order, meter and rhyme, Goldsmith is able to fill his poem with a sense of nostalgic loss and decline even as he contrasts the past with the present state of affairs through the implied meanings he instills within his gentle observations. His description of the old schoolmaster would obviously not fit within the larger context of the cities and towns he has now become accustomed to, yet has once held a great deal of respect, equating something almost like a god within the small village setting. This concept of the loss of something priceless with the loss of the small country villages is made more explicitly within the larger context of the poem from which this was taken, yet the consistent use of author’s tools enables Goldsmith to indicate his meaning even within a short segment, allowing it to stand freely as a work of art on its own. References Goldsmith, Oliver. “The Village Schoolmaster.” “The Village Schoolmaster.” (2007). The University of Buckingham. Available 29 March 2007 from < http://www.buckingham.ac.uk/english/schools/poetry-bank/schoolmaster.html> Read More