"Oliver Goldsmith
(November 10, 1730(?) – April 4, 1774) was an Irish writer and physician
known for his novel The
Vicar of Wakefield (1766), his pastoral poem The
Deserted Village (1770) (written in memory of his brother), and
his plays The Good-natur'd Man (1768) and She
Stoops to Conquer (1773)" (wikipedia).
You should be familiar with the plot, characters, & themes of She
Stoops to Conquer. The Vicar of Wakefield (a sentimental
novel) is "briefly mentioned in Jane Austen's
Emma, Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two
Cities and in Johann
von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther" (wikipedia).
Washington Irving wrote a biography
of Goldsmith.
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- "Sweet Auburn, loveliest
village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed:
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene;
How often have I paused on every charm,
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that topped the neighbouring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made." (The
Deserted Village )
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