Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield : A Tale Supposed to be Written by Himself (1761-2)
Goldsmith (1730-1774): The Traveller (1764), The Deserted Village (1770), She Stoops to Conquer (1773) + reviews & essays. Awkward Irishman who worked in medicine before turning to professional writing.
Plot
The Primroses (6 children) live in a pastoral paradise until the parson learns that his merchant in town has a done a runner with the family fortune. They relocate to a Cure on Squire Thornhill’s estate. This last is a notorious libertine, and while this worries the parson, his daughters welcome the attempt on their virtue, already anticipating their victory. Meanwhile, George, the eldest son, is sent to London to make some money to add to the family coffers.
On the way to their new abode, the family meets Mr. Burchell (aka Sir William Thornhill) at an Inn where they pay his tab for him. He becomes a family friend—and something more to Sophia.
Olivia falls for the Squire despite receiving an offer from the good farmer, Mr. Williams. She ends up eloping with the Squire and surrendering her virtue after a sham wedding. The vicar recoups his daughter only to return home to find his house in flames. He ends up in the gaol because his landlord (the Squire) insists upon being paid regardless. George joins him (arrested for instigating a duel against the Squire). Olivia is reported dead (from shame) and Sophia gets abducted (the Squire’s plot, of course). Miss Wilmot is poised to marry the Squire.
Enter Mr Burchell, who is actually Sir William Thornhill in disguise. He rescues Sophia and Olivia is found to be alive. Just when it looks like Wilmot has lost his fortune to the Squire (the youngsters are not married, but the deeds have been signed), it turns out that the Squire’s righthand man, Jenkinson, reveals that the sham marriage was not a sham at all, and Mr. Thornhill is in fact married to Olivia. The Squire is sent away and the novel wraps up with a double wedding (Sir William & Sophia; George & Arabella). Even the Primrose fortune is restored from the rogue merchant.
The catchy
• I was ever of opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population. For this motive, I had scarce taken orders a year before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and chose my wife as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well (9).
• The little republic to which I gave laws… (22).
• Disproportioned friendships ever terminate in disgust; and I thought, notwithstanding all his ease, that he seemed perfectly sensible of the distance between us (27).
• But as men are most capable of distinguishing merit in women, so the ladies often form the truest judgments of us. The two sexes seem placed as spies upon each other, and are furnished with different abilities, adapted for mutual inspection (41).
• Fudge! (XI).
• A reformation in the gaol. To make laws complete, they should reward as well as punish (XXVI).
• “Indeed, Sir,” replied she, “he owes all his triumph to the desire I had of making him, and not myself, happy. I knew that the ceremony of our marriage, which was privately performed by a popish priest, was no way binding and that I had nothing to trust to but his honour” (109).
• Thus, my friends, you see religion does what philosophy could never do: it shews the equal dealings of heaven to the happy and the unhappy, and levels all human enjoyments to nearly the same standard (146).
Marriage
Parson Primrose is a strict monogamist. In his view: 1. Bringing children forth in the world is a duty; 2. He minds the family’s spiritual concerns whereas his wife is in charge of the temporal (gendered division of labour); 3. A practical match will become a love match over time (esp. children). His inflexibility on this point leads him to row with Arabella Wilmot’s father, thus compromising his son’s marriage. He maintains that his honour is all the more important in penury and refuses to smooth Wilmot’s ruffled feathers.
Temperence is a virtue
The vicar digs it. His daughters are polar opposites, but neither takes her shtick to excess. They both stick closely to the Primrose personality: “But it is needless to attempt describing the particular characters of young people that had seen but very little of the world. In short, a family likeness prevailed through all, and properly speaking, they had but one character, that of being all equally generous, credulous, simple, and inoffensive” (12). Country bumpkins are poor and simple and are thereby temperate by default.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (late Aristotle: in his 60s)
Aristotle defines his project as political science, where political science is simply an ethics for the state. As such, political science, insofar as it aims to govern what a whole nation of men ought to do, is more “godlike” than an ethics that prescribes rules for the individual only. Laws are the works of political art.
The mean
The good is the mean and this mean is perceived rather than discovered via reason. Human beings are endowed with reason, which enables them to make sense of the particular perceptions they experience and thereby approach the mean. Neither reason nor sensual pleasure/pain can motivate a moral action on its own. If we begin with a rational idea of what is virtuous, we act on it only if it is bolstered by a desire. Likewise, a natural desire must be guided by reason in order to produce a moral action.
Some deviation from the mean cannot be avoided, but blatant outliers are blamed.
Class
Where a friendship is unequal, the love must also be unequal (proportional).
“This is why lovers sometimes seem ridiculous, when they demand to be loved as they love; if they are equally lovable their claim can perhaps be justified, but when they have nothing lovable about them it is ridiculous” (206).
Marriage
Marriage is both useful (division of labour) and pleasurable (natural propensity to form couples) and sometimes virtuous (if there is a good common bond, e.g. children).
The relationship between man and wife is aristocratic because man rules in accordance to his worth and leaves women’s business to his wife. If a man permits his wife no say in anything or if a woman rules thanks to wealth and power (which eclipse her husband’s superior excellence), the relation becomes oligarchic.
Sympathy
Only women and womanly men want their friends to share in their grief.
Self-love and pleasure
The good man (he who does what he ought to do) is a lover of self as he reserves what is noble for himself. The wicked man should not be a lover of self since he is a slave to his evil passions.
The measure of virtue
The good man is the yardstick against which every action is evaluated because he takes the most pleasure in the most virtuous action. Therefore, because happiness is the only thing that is an end it itself, the good man does what he ought to do.
Reason is what distinguishes man from animal. It is man’s most human quality. The most authentic man—he who is most true to his nature—is the happiest man. Thus, living according to reason is the happiest life as well as the most virtuous.
Virtuous action consists of both will and deeds. But where deeds depend upon needs (e.g. wealth to be generous), thinking is autonomous.
God does nothing, therefore he thinks. We must then assume that thought is blessedness/happiness. The man who most closely resembles God is the most blessed. That man is the philosopher.
Habit
Goodness is inculcated either through nature, habituation, or teaching. If it were by nature, everyone would be virtuous. Likewise, the mob cannot be convinced by argument because they have no sense of shame, only a sense of fear. Habit is what remains.
The law, derived from reason and practical wisdom, must fix virtue until it becomes habit. The law has an impersonal compulsive power and men follow it without resentment.
Context
The law does not hold good for every particular situation. A judge well-versed in law must take context into account. In other words, he must know the universal laws inside and out before he can tailor them. He needs experience as well as knowledge. This expert is the only man fit to command.
In a nutshell:
The good is the mean, which can only be approached through understanding coupled with sensual perception. The good man is the rational man, who is also the most authentic man qua man and therefore the happiest. He is motivated by self-love, which leads him to reserve the most noble and virtuous actions for himself. Regarding sympathy, the good man has his friends share in his joys, but not in his grief (a womanly weakness).
The philosopher is closest to God (God is a contemplative being), and it is he who is fit both to make laws and tailor them for particular circumstances.
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