Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift 1667-1745

Jonathan Swift, Irish author and journalist, the foremost prose satirist in the English language. Swift's best known work is Gulliver's Travels (1726).Swift was born in Dublin on November 30,1667. He studied at Kilkenny Grammar School (1674-82) and at Trinity College in Dublin (1682-89), receiving his B.A. in 1868 and M.A. in 1692.

In 1695 Swift was ordained in the Church of Ireland (Anglican), Dublin. He made several trips to London and gained fame with his essays. Throughout the reign of Queen Anne (1702-14), Swift was one of the central figures in the literary and political life of London. He was a founder member of the Scriblerus Club.
Queen Anne

1710 Swift tried to open a political career among the Whigs but changed his party and took over the Tory journal The Examiner . With the accession of George I, the Tories lost political power and Swift withdrew to Ireland. From 1713 to 1742 he was the dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Swift's religious writing is little read today.
King George I

His most famous works other than Gulliver's Travels include The Battle Of The Books (1697) which explores the merits of the ancients and the moderns in literature and A Tale Of A Tub (1704), a religious satire. In Arguments Against Abolishing Christianity (1708) the narrator argues for the preservation of the Christian religion as a social necessity.

Gulliver’s Travels
Jonathan’s masterpiece, “Gulliver’s Travels” appeared in 1726. It is divided into four books, but the young people prefer only two of them: Gulliver’s voyages to Lilliput
( where the people are six inches high) and Brobdingnag (where the people are giants). The Lilliputians fight wars which seem foolish. The King of Brobdingnag thinks that people are the most terrible creatures on the Earth.

When an ignorant cobbler named John Partridge published an almanac of astrological predictions, Swift parodied it in his book Prediction For The Ensuing Year By Issac Bickerstaff .

He foretold the death of John Partridge on March 1708, and affirmed on that day his prediction. Partridge protested that he was alive but Swift 'proved' in his "Vindication" that he was dead. The Drapier's Letters (1724) were written against the monopoly granted by the English government to William Wood to provide the Irish with copper coinage .

In the satirical essay "A Modest Proposal" (1729) Swift with horrifying logic recommends that Irish poverty can solved by the breeding up their infants as food for the rich. Swift died on October 19, 1745 and was buried in St Patrick's cathedral.

Swift’s Death Mask and Grave In St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

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Jonathan Swift

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