American College Course Volume 7 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ... OLIVER GOLDSMITH. SIMPLICITY AND NATURALNESS IN PROSE AND POETRY. By John Ebenezer Bryant, M.A. Goldsmith occupies a place in literature wholly unique. He cannot be called one of the world's great writers, nor, in his literary output--the work he did that still keeps fresh and green, the work that he himself called literature--either large in bulk or weighty in importance. And yet, while every other writer of his age now held in esteem owes his present fame to the historical interest of a reputation that once was famous, rather than to the world's actual familiarity with the works on which that reputation is based, Goldsmith is to-day as much read as ever he was. "The Vicar of Wakefield" is still one of our most highly prized prose classics; " The Traveller" and "The Deserted Village" are still two of our most warmly loved poems; and the two plays, "The GoodNatured Man" and "She Stoops to Conquer," with scarcely a line of amendment, are still the delight of playgoers, still furnish parts which it is the fond ambition of the most gifted players to excel in. In short, Goldsmith, despite the small extent and the comparative unimportance of his literary achievement--in the charm of his humour, the simplicity and tenderness of his pathos, the easy naturalness of his characterisation, the easy elegance of his diction, and the wholesomeness of his moral sentiment--is even to-day, as he has been now for over a century and a half, wholly unrivalled. Oliver Goldsmith was born at Pallas, in the county of Longford, Ireland, November 10, 1728. His family, though long settled in Ireland, was wholly of English descent, and Goldsmith, who left Ireland when quite young, and who lived most of his mature life in England, might easily have forgotten his...