A critical commentary on 'The Village Schoolmaster' by O. Goldsmith Essay

A critical commentary on 'The Village Schoolmaster' by O. Goldsmith - Essay Example While poetry, like literature, can be used for a variety of purposes, poetry such as that created by Oliver Goldsmith in his poem â€Å"The Village Schoolmaster† concentrates on illustrating a specific emotion. This is made explicitly apparent when one takes the work within its original context as a portion of a much longer work entitled â€Å"The Deserted Village.† According to an article posted by the University of Buckingham (â€Å"The Village Schoolteacher†, 2007), this longer work painted a picture of what is believed to be an amalgamation of a variety of small villages Goldsmith remembered, presenting a single image of a deserted town left behind as the result of privatization and loss of their lands. This longer work illustrates the importance of the fence mentioned in the first line of â€Å"The Village Schoolmaster† as newly privatized land was ‘enclosed’ in the name of progress: â€Å"what Goldsmith thought was going on is clear fro m what he says elsewhere in the poem: ‘Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide’ (307)† (â€Å"The Village Schoolmaster†, 2007). Regardless of whether one is familiar with the longer work from which this poem is taken, Goldsmith’s poem â€Å"The Village Schoolmaster† evokes the same sense of sad nostalgia for something lost forever within itself through Goldsmith’s mastery of imagery, meter, rhyme, lexicon and implied meaning. Goldsmith employs imagery within the very first lines of his poem to help set up the scene he wishes to invoke: â€Å"Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way / With Blossom’d furze unprofitably gay† (1-2). The fence is further ahead, indicating a division between the land upon which the speaker is standing and the land upon which the deserted village still stands. That it is deserted is indicated by the overwhelming blossoming furze which is unprofitable because no one is left to enjoy it. However, it continues to