GOLDSMITH THE POET Popularity of The Traveller and The Deserted Village. -The reasons for the perennial popularity of The Traveller and The Deserted Village - especially the latter are no mystery. One ground of immediate appeal is the easy and melodious flow of the verse; often a merely casual reading is enough to fix in mind for all time many of the couplets. Not only did Goldsmith have a nice ear for harmonies of sound, but it was his habit to write with laborious care, and then to revise until he secured a graceful union of sound and sense; the various editions of The Traveller, for example, record many changes in the fashioning of verses, most of them decidedly for the better. The same care marks Goldsmith's choice and use of words. His natural taste was for the short and vivid noun and the homely adjective. The gift of concrete visualization was born in him, and to make others see the pictures of his remembrance or his fancy just as he saw them,- such a purpose called for the careful weighing of epithets and turning of phrases. It is this pictorial vividness that puts the greater part of Goldsmith's verse in the very fore-front of descriptive poetry. There is still another reason why The Traveller and The Deserted Village are dear to poetry lovers,— their genuineness of ring. The poet's heart pulsed with love and sympathy for the wretched and the lowly; and when he sings this, his favorite theme, there is no mockery in his humor, no hollowness in his pathos. It is only when Goldsmith turns away from personal things and spins out measured abstractions on subjects like wealth and luxury, that his numbers lose their lilt and color, and his thought becomes heavy and dull. Taken all in all, however, The Deserted Village and The Traveller, despite their lack of sustained strength, and their didactic tone here and there, are poems that will continue to appeal to the human heart so long as simplicity, sincerity and sympathy make for a fellowship of understanding. 66 Meter and Form.- The meter of both The Traveller and The Deserted Village is the conventional meter of the classical and the Johnsonian age,- the heroic couplet, or rhymed iambic pentameter. Although Gray and Thomson had already departed somewhat from the stiff example of Pope and his school, and although there was a growing tendency to give more freedom and flexibility to poetic utterance, Dr. Johnson still adhered to the old classical manner, and Goldsmith was too good a friend and pupil even to dream of setting himself up above the master. Moreover, in the dedication to The Traveller, Goldsmith goes so far as to say, What criticisms have we not heard of late in favor of blank verse, and Pindaric odes, choruses, anapests and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence; every absurdity has now a champion to defend it; and as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say; for error is ever talkative.” And yet Goldsmith's meter is, to an extent, distinctive. Fully as conventional as that of Pope, it is less metallic and monotonous, for variety in rhythm is secured by means of the substitution of trochees for the regular iambics, occasional stresses on the lighter syllables, pleasing vowel combinations and graceful consonant effects,devices of versification that betoken the poetic gift rather than the rhyming knack. THE TRAVELLER Composition and Publication.- The Traveller was begun so its dedication to Henry Goldsmith tells us when the author was sojourning in Switzerland, some time in the year 1756. The poem was not completed and given to the public, however, till December 19, 1764; and possibly it would never have appeared but for the unstinted praise of Johnson, to whom Goldsmith submitted it for critical judgment. The great doctor championed its worth in The Critical Review, then the chief literary organ of the day, declaring it "the finest poem since the day of Pope." Although The Traveller won notice and praise in literary circles, which at first could scarcely credit the "bookseller's drudge" with its authorship, it did not immediately become widely known or popular. However, during the first year of its publication, three editions besides the first were struck off the plates of Newberry; and before Goldsmith's death in 1774 the ninth had been published. Irving says, "It produced a golden harvest to Mr. Newberry: but all the remuneration on record, doled out by his niggard hand to the author, was twenty guineas!" Opinions of the Poet's Friends. The following conversation respecting The Traveller is reported by Boswell as having taken place at a dinner party given at the home of Sir Joshua Reynolds a few years after Goldsmith's death. The talk drifting around to Goldsmith, somebody remarked that The Traveller had brought its author into high reputation. Bennet Langton: "Yes, and no wonder: there is not one bad line in the poem, not one of Dryden's careless verses." Sir Joshua Reynolds: "I was glad to hear Charles Fox say it was one of the finest poems in the language." Hereupon Dr. Johnson broke in. "No: the merit of The Traveller is so well established that Mr. Fox's praise cannot augment it, nor his censure diminish it. Goldsmith was a man who, whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do. He deserved a place in Westminster Abbey, and every year he lived he would have deserved it better." A delicate tribute to the beauty of The Traveller was paid by Sir Joshua Reynolds' sister, who, after listening to a reading of the poem, exclaimed: "Well, I never more shall think Dr. Goldsmith ugly." Purpose and Plan.— The ethical purpose of The Traveller is to reconcile man with his station in life, whatever it may be. According to the poet, happiness is evenly distributed among all nations, though its expression differs under differing conditions. To apply this theory concretely, the poet takes up a point on an Alpine height, and passes in review the leading characteristics of the countries through which he has journeyed. Whatever the virtue of a particular land, that virtue, it is observed, usually runs into excess and brings evil in its wake. After a comparison of class with class, and condition with condition, Goldsmith finally reaches the conclusion that happiness is a state of the mind and is to be had by all alike. Models. A critical examination of The Traveller reveals Goldsmith's indebtedness, especially as regards material, to other poets of, and before, his day,- notably to Joseph Addison, James Thomson, and Dr. Samuel Johnson. It is clear that Goldsmith knew and admired Addison's Letter from Italy, published in 1701. There are also traces of the influence of Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes, published in 1749, particularly in the didactic parts of The Traveller. Goldsmith's chief debt, however, was to James Thomson's Liberty, as Dr. Tupper has plainly established. "Thomson had pointed out the evils arising from various forms of Government; Goldsmith recalled his words when he painted the faults of each race and clime. Later when he wished to portray in The Deserted Village the sad results of trade and luxury, he turned again to Thomson,- the fifth canto indeed furnishing the design of many golden verses." Not that Goldsmith was a servile copyist; he sorted and sifted the material that appealed to his purpose and encased it in a marvelous beauty of phrase. Critical Estimate. As a final opinion of The Traveller Prof. Dowden's words are worth recalling: "None except Goldsmith knew how to unite such various elements into a delightful whole,- description, reflecting mirth, sadness, memory and love. No one like Goldsmith could pass so tranquilly from grave to gay, still preserving the delicate harmony of tone. No one like Goldsmith knew how to be at once natural and exquisite, innocent and wise, a man and still a child!" THE DESERTED VILLAGE Composition and Publication.-The Public Advertiser of May 26, 1770, contains this announcement: "This day, at twelve, will be published, price two shillings, The Deserted Village, a Poem. a Poem. By Dr. Goldsmith. Printed for W. Griffin, at Garrick's Head in Catherine Street, Strand." This date was five years after the appearance of The Traveller. The Vicar of Wakefield and The Good Natured Man, which had come from Goldsmith's pen during this period, had made their author a person of literary consequence. Thus the new poem made its bid. for favor at an auspicious moment. It became popular immediately, five editions being issued within three months after its publication; and praise came from all quarters: "A fine performance," said Dr. Johnson. "This man is a poet," asserted Thomas Gray. "What true and pretty pastoral images! they beat all-Pope, and Philips, and Spenser too, in my opinion," declared Edmund Burke. Purpose. The central idea of The Deserted Village is a lament over the decay of the small farmers, and an invective against the spreading power of the landed class |