The Construction Of Pastoral Utopia In The Vicar Of Wakefield

Born in an Irish village,Oliver Goldsmith has always showed a special interest in the country and its changes.Written in 1761,Goldsmith’s novel,The Vicar of Wakefield,combines rational education with a romantic description of rural England.This thesis takes the novel as the research object,trying to analyze the description of rural life in the novel from the perspective of pastoral utopia,discuss the construction path of pastoral utopia,and combine the social background to explore the author’s creative motivation and ideological connotation of pastoral utopia.The body of this thesis consists of three chapters,respectively discussing the representation,construction path,and ideological connotation of pastoral utopia.The first chapter discusses the basic characteristics of the pastoral utopia in the novel from three perspectives: economy,politics and ethics.Economically,it is self-sufficient;politically,democracy and equality are highlighted and mutual assistance encouraged within the rural community,with high social mobility and overall benevolence.The traditional domestic division of labor is challenged so that women in families could get much more space for discourse and action;ethically,sentiment is the ground of interrelationship,and religious belief is also firm.The second chapter analyzes the construction path of Goldsmith’s pastoral utopia through the combination of the theme of city-country contrast,the“Paradise Lost” narrative pattern and the pastoral retreat discourse.The sharp city-country contrast highlights the superiority of the pastoral utopia as the product of the imagination of Oliver Goldsmith;otherwise,the narrative pattern of “Paradise Lost” reveals its vulnerability;the pastoral retreat discourse reflects the healing function of the pastoral utopia and people’s negative and evasive attitude towards the complexity of the city.The third chapter analyzes the ideological connotation of the pastoral utopia against the social background: nostalgia for the old order and helplessness towards the new order.The former is embodied in the maintenance of the settled and reciprocal social relations brought by small-scale peasant economy;the defense of monarchy;a firm criticism of mercantilism.The latter is reflected in the author’s recognition of the inevitability of the course of social development and his critical perspective towards the new order.Through the analysis of this thesis,a conclusion can be drawn that the pastoral utopia in Oliver Goldsmith’s novel is a retrospection and nostalgia for the golden age grounded in the social reality of mercantilism.The pastoral utopia is not only a sustenance of Goldsmith’s social ideal,but also a spiritual refuge for the conservatives who reject the new order marked by money order in the period of social transformation,which embodies Goldsmith’s maintenance of the old order and his helpless and passive admission to the new order as one of the conservatives of the times.