SOURCE: "The Vicar of Wakefield: Goldsmith's Sublime Oriental Job" in ELH, Vol. 46, No. 1, Spring, 1979, pp. 97-121.

In the following excerpt, Lehmann explores Goldsmith's use of "Orientalized" interpretations of Job in The Vicar of Wakefield. The editors have included only those footnotes that pertain to the excerpted portion of the text reprinted below.

Ii

Lowth on Job is of paramount interest when we consider the possibility of understanding the Vicar as a Job-figure in any "doctrinal" sense. The most sophisticated such view is that of Martin C. Battestin's The Providence of Wit.³⁸ In the chapter entitled "Goldsmith: The Comedy of Job," Battestin confronts a problem that has vexed critics of this novel for some time, namely, the abrupt shift of tone and action that occurs midway through the book.³⁹ Once Charles Primrose leaves his family to retrieve the abducted Olivia, we move from the story of a family to...