Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 30 November 1667[1] Dublin, Ireland1 |
| Died | 19 October 1745 (aged 77) Ireland |
| Occupation | satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet, priest |
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for Whigs then for the Tories), poet and cleric.[2] He became Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin.
He is remembered for books and poems he wrote like: Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, Drapier's Letters, The Battle of the Books, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, and A Tale of a Tub. Swift is probably the most well known prose satirist in the English language. He is less well known for his poetry.
Swift originally published all of his work under pseudonyms — such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M.B. Drapier — or anonymously. He is known for being a master of two styles of satire; the Horatian and Juvenalian styles.
Works[change | change source]
Swift was a good writer, famous for his satires. The most recent collection of his prose works (Herbert Davis, ed. Basil Blackwell, 1965-) comprises fourteen volumes. A recent edition of his complete poetry (Pat Rodges, ed. Penguin, 1983) is 953 pages long. One edition of his correspondence (David Woolley, ed. P. Lang, 1999) fills three volumes.
Legacy[change | change source]
John Ruskin named him as one of the three people in history who were the most influential for him.[3]
References[change | change source]
- ↑ Thackeray 1876
- ↑ Merriman, C.D. "Jonathan Swift - Biography and Works". The Literature Network. Retrieved 2010-02-23.
- ↑ "John Ruskin: Sesame and Lillies". Archived from the original on 2009-02-24. Retrieved 2017-10-26.
Other websites[change | change source]
- e-texts of Swift's works