The Village School Master

Text of the poem

The Village School Master by Oliver Goldsmith.

Click here to access the text of the poem.

Idea of the poem

Core Meaning

The village Goldsmith is writing about is called "Auburn". It is not a real village, but an imaginary ideal one. It is possibly one of the villages he had observed as a child and a young man in Ireland and England. Goldsmith, returns to the village that he knew as vibrant and alive, and finds it deserted and overgrown.

The setting of the particular passage is described in the first three lines. Then Goldsmith discusses the character of the schoolmaster himself. In his appearance, he is very severe and stern. The reader would suppose him humourless, except that he likes to tell jokes. When Goldsmith says "the boding tremblers learn'd to trace/The days disasters in his morning face," the reader comes to understand that the schoolmaster does not mince his words. In the last two lines, he indicates that the schoolmaster was no more. All of his fame has gone and the schoolhouse, once vibrant is no longer in use.

The schoolmaster was a big presence in the village. In an age when literacy and numeracy were powerful the people of the village, looked up to him. He seems a kind of god. The children are fearful of him. They laugh at his jokes, even if they are not funny. “Full well “(9-10)

The adults are equally impressed with the way he can survey fields ("lands he could measure", 17) and work out boundaries or the times of holy-days like Easter. He can even do more complex calculations ("gauge", 18). This is all ironic: the school-teacher appears knowledgeable to the "gazing rustics" (22).

The poem's jokes are gentle. The tone of the poem is balanced and gentleness and humour imply a frame of mind that Goldsmith sees as important, as having a moral value in itself.

Context of the poem

About the author

Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1730 – 4 April 1774) was an Irish novelist, playwright and poet, who is best known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766). He is also known for his pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770), and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man (1768) and She Stoops to Conquer (1771, first performed in 1773). He also wrote An History of the Earth and Animated Nature. He is thought to have written the classic children's tale The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, the source of the phrase "goody two-shoes"

Transacting the text

Audio recital of the poem

To listen to the audio recital of the poem, Click here

Vocabulary

New words in a poem can be introduced through interactive educational tools. Tools such as Kanagram allow you to create vocabulary lists which can be introduced to the students. Students can also assist teachers in building these vocabularies. To learn how to use Kanagram and Khangman (UBUNTU Educational tools) please visit the following link:

http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/index.php/Resource_Book_for_MRP_Cascade_training_-_RMSA_Subject_Teachers_Forum_-_IT_for_Change#Kanagram

Sample word list:

Skirts: Go round or pass the edge of

Blossom'd: mature or develop in a promising or healthy way

Truant: a pupil who stays away from school without leave or explanation

Counterfeited: imitate fraudulently

Cipher: put (a message) into secret writing; encode

Vanquish'd: defeat thoroughly

For more information on vocabulary visit: http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/index.php/Vocabulary/Grammar

Figures of speech

A figure of speech is the use of a word or words diverging from its usual meaning. It can also be a special repetition, arrangement or omission of words with literal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it, as in idiom, metaphor, simile, hyperbole, or personification. Figures of speech often provide emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. However, clarity may also suffer from their use, as any figure of speech introduces an ambiguity between literal and figurative interpretation. A figure of speech is sometimes called a rhetorical figure or a locution. To know more click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech

The ones which have been used in this poem are:

Alliteration: "terms and tides"; "rustics rang'd"

Anaphora: "Full well they laugh'd"; "Full well the busy"

Analogy: it's a part to whole. The schoolmaster (part) is compared to the village (whole)

Imagery: 3 types

setting-based imagery: "straggling fence"; "noisy mansion"; "little school" intellectual/educational imagery: "Lands"; "terms and tides"; "small head" rhetorical/linguistic imagery: "words"; "jokes"; "story" Rhyming couplets: pairs of rhyming lines ("spot" / "forgot")

End-stopped lines (punctuation "." or "," or ";" at the end of a line)

Caesura: punctation in the middle of a line ("Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught,")

Speaker/Tone: loves the school master; poem is a dedication to him

Additional resources

Videos can be used in the classroom to demonstrate effective reading strategies. A poem can be read out with emotions, voice modulation and dramatic effects by the teacher. Some poem recitations are available over the Internet too. A few links to the same are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PjQvGs_qN4

Assessment

Ask the learners to write a short paragraph using the hints given below.

Hints:

• What is the poem about?
• Which is the most striking image and why.?
• What are the similarities and differences between the present school masters and the one described in the poem?