The Deserted Village (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Oliver Goldsmith
- First Published: 1770
- Type of Work: Meditation
- Genres: Poetry, Meditation
- Subjects: Rural or country life, Villages, England or English people, Farms, farmers, or farming, Eighteenth century, Ireland or Irish people
The Poem
The Deserted Village is a long poem, its 430 lines distributed among twenty-five verse paragraphs of varying length. All the lines are given in heroic couplets. It is clear that Oliver Goldsmith as poet is the persona of the poem. The first-person narration is used to express a lamentation, as it were, for the passing of a way of life.
The meaning of the title is readily evident; it not only lists the poem’s subject, but suggests its theme as well. Roughly, the poem can be divided into three main sections: a description of the village as it used to be...
[The entire page is 1616 words long]
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