Jonathan Swift
| Jonathan Swift | |
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| 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.
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[change] Works
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.
[change] Legacy
John Ruskin named him as one of the three people in history who were the most influential for him.[3]
[change] References
- ↑ Thackeray 1876
- ↑ Merriman, C.D.. "Jonathan Swift - Biography and Works" (in English). The Literature Network. http://www.online-literature.com/swift/. Retrieved 2010-02-23.
- ↑ John Ruskin: Sesame and Lillies
[change] Other websites
- e-texts of Swift's works
