Opening Para of forthcoming essay on Goldsmith: The brilliant Irish author, Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774), was stunningly ugly, even sitting across the table from the grotesque Samuel Johnson. By all accounts, Goldsmith possessed defects more than skin deep. Goldsmith was eaten up with envy, once leaping upon a table to prove that he could surpass in eloquence the famously gifted Edmund Burke, only to find himself stumped after two sentences. Praise for Johnson drove poor “Noldy” to distraction. He was a stupendous failure at university, finishing last in his class at Trinity College, Dublin, and awarded his B.A. out of pity. In his early writing career he plagiarized naturalist texts and popular histories. He drank, he gambled, he was always in debt. He studied to become a medical doctor but by God’s grace never practiced; he did, however, treat one serious illness and managed to send himself to an early grave. He was ugly, unpleasant, incompetent, reckless, and lacking in self-discipline … and blessed by the gods with a superb talent for lucid and entertaining writing. Horace Walpole called Goldsmith an “inspired idiot.” More generously, Johnson wrote that Goldsmith “left scarcely any style of writing untouched, and touched nothing that he did not adorn.” Goldsmith, unlucky in life, was repaid with immortal fame – the author of The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), “The Deserted Village” (1770), and She Stoops to Conquer (1773).
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 21:32:47 +0000
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