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Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish writer best known for his works such as The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), The Good-Natur'd Man (1768), The Deserted Village (1770) and She Stoops to Conquer (1771).
Tom Moore gave it words of his own: " Sing, sing, music was given to brighten the gay and kindle the loving ". Miss Hardcastle's song has hardly the mood of the jig-like tune, but the words fit the rhythm like a glove, and show Goldsmith to have been as capable of writing words to music as Moore himself. I49
- Overview
- Works in Biographical and Historical Context
- Works in Literary Context
- Works in Critical Context
- Responses to Literature
- Bibliography
Oliver Goldsmithwas one of the most important writers of the Augustan Age, otherwise known as the neoclassical age or the Age of Reason. The most striking feature of Goldsmith's writing is his versatility; he wrote across genres, including the essay, the pseudoletter, the novel, poetry, history, and biography.
Growing Up the Son of a Poor ClergymanGoldsmith was the fifth child born to the Reverend Charles Goldsmith and his wife. During his youth, his family was poor, but not in serious financial straits. His parents had planned for a university education for their son, but his older sister's marriage necessitated a large dowry and left no money for tuiti...
In a brief but intensely creative period of sixteen years, Goldsmith distinguished himself in a broad variety of literary forms, writing essays, biographies, histories, poems, plays, and a novel. In all he wrote he achieved a style of remarkable ease and charm. Goldsmith's most important literary works were in many respects inspired by his dislike ...
A First-Rank Historian In an assessment of his importance as a writer, one returns inevitably to the charm of his style and the sheer breadth of his work across genres. In 1773, Johnson said: “Whether, indeed, we take him as a poet—as a comick writer—or as an historian, he stands in the first rank.” He held strong moral convictions, and though tole...
Goldsmith distinguished himself in a broad variety of literary forms. Make a list of other authors who have successfully written across genres. Then, choose one of those authors and read a short se...Commentators often disagree about whether Goldsmith's apparent sentimentality is meant to be taken seriously or is meant to be a satirical attack. With one of your classmates, discuss how both of t...In The Vicar of Wakefield, the reader is told no more than the vicar himself knows, which is much less than the entire story. Write an essay filling out what an omniscient, third-person narrator mi...Much of Goldsmith's writing was inspired by a dislike of the literary sensibilities of his day. Make a list of present-day literary sensibilities that you dislike and explain the reasons for each o...Books
Dobson, Austin. Life of Oliver Goldsmith. London: Scott, 1888. Forster, John. The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith. London: Bradbury & Evans, Chapman & Hall, 1848; revised and enlarged, 2 volumes, 1854. Ginger, John. The Notable Man: The Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith. London: Hamilton, 1977. Hopkins, Robert H. The True Genius of Oliver Goldsmith. Baltimore: Johns HopkinsPress, 1969. Kirk, Clara M. Oliver Goldsmith. New York: Twayne, 1967. Paden, William D. Clyde Kenneth Hyder. A C...
Despite his prolific career as a writer in many different genres, Goldsmith never enjoyed the celebrity of his friend Dr. Johnson, whose name after 1756 acquired that status of household word as The Great Lexicographer.
Oliver early became, and through life continued to be, a passionate admirer of the Irish music, and especially of the compositions of Carolan, some of the last notes of whose harp he heard.
This work was The Vicar of Wakefield, which, published fifteen months later, established Goldsmith's reputation as a prose writer. In December of the same year appeared The Traveller , a poem based upon his own experiences abroad, which, like The Deserted Village , afterwards published, was marked by exquisite diction, serene graces of style ...
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Oliver Goldsmith, poet, civil servant (b at St Andrews, NB 6 July 1794; d at Liverpool, Eng 23 June 1861). The son of Loyalists and grandnephew of Irish poet Oliver Goldsmith, he was employed for most of his life in the commissariat of the British army at Halifax.
