the Village Schoolmaster[1]
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Transcript of the Village Schoolmaster[1]
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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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