Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Satire and Irony in Dublin
LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT
Jonathan Swift is widely regarded as the greatest writer of satire in English literature. Yet it is crucial for understanding Swift's satire to know that he was not really English. Swift was born in Dublin in 1667, to a family that originally had emigrated from England -- for this reason, he is generally described as "Anglo-Irish." Swift did his university studies in Dublin at Trinity College, graduating in 1686. From here he became the personal secretary to a politician and writer, Sir William Temple, and moved to England. Political machinations, however, hampered Swift's advancement in a political career -- instead he would end up taking a position in the Protestant Church of Ireland, ultimately rising to the position of Dean at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin.
Swift's career encompassed both literature and politics. As a wit and satirist, he was close friends with some of the greatest writers of the day -- most notably the English poet Alexander Pope. Like Pope, Swift was greatly concerned with the literature of Ancient Greece and Rome, and would use classical greatness as a way of cutting the pretensions of his contemporaries down to size. This type of "neo-classical" satire is typified by Swift's early literary successes, A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books, published together in one volume in 1704. His most famous...
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