Oliver Goldsmith: Literary Life and The Deserted Village

Oliver Goldsmith, son of an Anglo-Irish clergyman, spent his childhood at Lissoy. It is thought he drew on memories of this place when writing The Deserted Village. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he excelled in flute-playing, storytelling, drinking, and gambling. After graduating in 1750, he moved to Edinburgh to study medicine, though he did not obtain a degree. Subsequently, he studied in Leiden and, during 1755-56, travelled through France, Switzerland, and Italy, arriving in London destitute in 1756. He then began a literary career as a reviewer and hack-writer, producing biographies, compilations, and translations.

Over the next fifteen years, Goldsmith was exceptionally prolific, authoring numerous popular histories and journal articles. His most notable works include:

• The Citizen of the World (1762): A fictional Chinese visitor's commentary on English manners and mores.
• The Traveller (1764): A couplet poem examining the influence of climate on national character.
• The Vicar of Wakefield (1766): An enduringly popular novel of English rural life.
• The Deserted Village (1770)
• Two highly successful stage comedies: The Good Natur'd Man (produced at Covent Garden in 1768 with moderate success) and She Stoops to Conquer (1773).

Goldsmith's readable style and talent for entertaining audiences contributed to his literary popularity. However, his spendthrift habits and inability to manage finances had severe consequences. He was fortunate to have the friendship of Dr. Johnson, who saved him from debtors' prison by finding a publisher willing to advance him £60 for the manuscript of The Vicar of Wakefield.

The Deserted Village

The Deserted Village was published on 26 May 1770 and achieved instant popularity, reaching its sixth edition by 4 October. The poem expresses Goldsmith's indignation regarding rural depopulation. Wealthy merchants, by purchasing large estates and enclosing common grazing land, were displacing villagers from their homes, often forcing them to emigrate to America.

His perception of national decline, his critique of luxury, and his celebration of the yeomanry align more closely with attacks on Walpole's administration in the 1720s and 1730s than with the political realities of his own era. The speaker in the poem is generally assumed to be Goldsmith himself, as he allows his imagination to reflect on scenes from his own early life in rural Ireland.

In certain aspects, The Deserted Village functions as an argument. Its core contention is that the folly and injustices of the enclosures, which are eradicating established villages and displacing their inhabitants, thereby weakening the nation, must cease.