Discussion today turned from some of the historical and contextual issues of empire and colonialism to focus on some of the aesthetic issues in play in Dyer's The Ruins of Rome. On Friday, we'll be turning back to history by looking at Oliver Goldsmith's very different treatment of the British empire in an excerpt from The Deserted Village. The portion of the poem I've assigned depicts a family emigrating to the American colonies because recent changes in land use have made it impossible to continue farming in their native village.
How do you see issues of empire connecting these two poems?
What strikes you as interesting, baffling, confusing, thought-provoking about The Deserted Village?
What questions do you still have about The Ruins of Rome?
What kinds of solutions does Blake's "And Did Those Feet..." (in the post below) offer to the problems that Dyer and Goldsmith describe in their poems?
Pick one of these questions and offer a thoughtful response, supported by directly quoted evidence from the text(s).
Deadline: Friday (2/27), 10am.
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3 comments:
I was intrigued, and a little confused, by how Goldsmith seems to depict the expansion of the empire as weakening the individual. Without land left to farm, the speaker ponders where to migrate to. He is opposed to moving to the burgeoning city, where "the pale artist plies his sickly trade." He criticizes all the excess generated by expansion as moving further away from good ol' manual labor that made the country great. It seemed similar to the pastoral elements of Gray's "Elegy", having a poet romanticize the concept of 'an honest day's work'.
I do agree with Mike that the poem does take on some of the pastoral imagery of Gray's "Elegy", however I feel that Goldsmith has an entirely different grasp on the concept of the pastoral. While Gray was writing from a noble, city dwellers perspective looking into the lives of the lower class, Goldsmith is lamenting the loss of a memory. Goldsmith looks on the broken town with nostalgic memories and depressing realizations of the reality for his people migrating to the cites. Gray could only reach, grasp for understanding of the miseries of those buried under the unmarked gravestones, Goldsmith sees the faces of those lost.
To cite the lines i referenced, 325-331 displays the young woman once thriving in her town that Goldsmith is remembering, is now despairing in the city. This images brings a very personal touch to the concept of the pastoral.
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