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The Village

Schoolmaster

Goldsmith

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This is not really a whole

poem but an extract from

Goldsmith's long poemThe Deserted Village,

which runs to 430 lines. In

the opening line of the

complete poem, Goldsmithnames the village as

"sweet Auburn" - but the

original on which it is

modelled was, accordingto the poet's sister, Lissoy,

in County Westmeath,

Ireland.

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This passage is a portrait ofa teacher at the village

school. The poet is lookingback on a time when thevillage was lively and activewhereas now no one livesthere. (Goldsmith's readersknew this as a reality -changes in land ownership,coupled with new jobopportunities in machine

production, had causedpeople to move from thecountry to the cities, leavingmany villages without

people.)

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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 personalqualities and gives details of

the master's learning. But

above all he shows how the

schoolmaster belonged in hisplace - having the affection

and respect of the whole

community.

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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.

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The teacher is outwardlystrict, and the scholars learnto respond to his moods

(some things do not changemuch). But he is really kind.

Among his accomplishmentsare literacy("he could write")and numeracy("and cipher").

He could measure distanceson charts, calculate dates andforecast tides. People believethat he can "gauge" (surveyland or estimate its area) - but

we do not know if the belief isjustified. Most impressive, thevillage parson recognized hisability to argue.

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The less educated

country people were full

of wonder that "one smallhead could carry" so

much. To the reader, his

learning will seem quite

limited, but also notespecially academic, as

we would now call it.

Much of what the teacher

knows or is rumoured toknow is of immediate

practical usefulness - like

working out dates, tides

and land areas.

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The poet's

method The form of this poem

is in a long sequence

of the kind that we call

discursive - it movesfrom one mini-subject

to another, in a

carefully-organized

whole.

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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 thevillagers' wonder was really

quite limited in his

achievements. The villagers

think it marvellous that hecan write and count, for

example - but this tells us

more about them than about

him.

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The great importance of theparson as a judge of ability

appears, too. (If the parsonsays it, then it must betrue.) Most revealing is theway that the schoolmasterimpressed people in

argument - by using "wordsof learned length andthundering sound". (Thiscould almost be a criticism

of poetic diction, too.) Thatis, he did not win by logic orreason, but through usingwords that baffled thehearer

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There are still people who

find this impressive, but

nowadays we are oftenunconvinced by those who

hide a weak argument

behind impressive-

sounding words. Moreover,the fact that most of the

village people seem to

remain ignorant rustics

may mean that theschoolmaster has never

succeeded in passing on

much of his learning to the

scholars.

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We also note the

formal use ofcontrast

- one pair of linesbeginning "Full well"

shows how the

scholars would know

when to laugh (evenpretending to find his

jokes funny), while the

next pair shows how

they knew when hewas in a more severe

mood.

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