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Review Essays of Academic, Professional & Technical Books in the Humanities & Sciences
The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift edited by Christopher
Fox
(Cambridge Companions to Literature: Cambridge University Press) (HARDCOVER)
explores crucial dimensions of Swift's life and works. As well as ensuring a
broad coverage of Swift's writing--including early and later works as well as
the better known and the lesser known - the Companion also offers a way into
current critical and theoretical issues surrounding the author. Special emphasis
is placed on Swift's vexed relationship with the land of his birth,
Various interpretations have
been placed on Swift’s life and work. Much has been written in his defense since
the unsympathetic studies of Macaulay, Jeffrey and Thackeray appeared; but he
remains somewhat of a mystery that this Companion attempts to alleviate. It is
not easy to reconcile his contempt for humankind with his affection for his
friends and their affection for him; or his attacks on woman with his love for
one, and the love which two women felt for him. It is, again, difficult, in view
of the decorum of his own life and his real, if formal, religion, to explain the
offensiveness of some of his writings. Probably, this was due to a distorted
imagination, the result of physical or mental defect; and it must be remembered
that it is only here and there that coarseness appears. Sterne remarked, “Swift
has said a thousand things I durst not say.” But there is no lewdness in Swift’s
work, and no persistent strain of indecency, as in Sterne.
Some have suggested that Swift’s avoidance of the common ties of human life was due to fears of approaching madness; others have supposed that the explanation was physical infirmity; others, again, have found the key in his coldness of temperament or in his strong desire for independence. He appears to have hungered for human sympathy, but to have wanted nothing more. From the passion of love, he seems to have turned with disgust. The early years of poverty and dependence left an indelible mark on him, and he became a disappointed and embittered man. His mind, possessed by a spirit of scorn, turned in upon itself, and his egotism grew with advancing years. Cursed with inordinate pride and arrogance, he became like a suppressed volcano. His keenness of vision caused him to see with painful clearness all that was contemptible and degrading in his fellow men; but he had little appreciation for what was good and great in them. The pains and giddiness to which Swift was subject left their impression upon his work; “at best,” he said, “I have an ill head, and an aching heart.” His misanthropy was really a disease, and his life of loneliness and disappointment was a tragedy, calling for pity and awe, rather than for blame.
Contributors: Christopher Fox, Joseph McMinn, David
Oakleaf, Carole Fabricant, Brean Hammond, Margaret Anne Doody, Michael F.
Suarez, S.J., Patrick Kelly, Ian Higgins, Marcus Walsh, Pat Rogers, Judith C.
Mueller, J. Paul Hunter, Seamus Deane
Contents: List of illustrations; Chronology; List of
abbreviations; Introduction Christopher Fox; 1. Swift’s life Joseph McMinn; 2.
Politics and history David Oakleaf; 3. Swift the Irishman Carole Fabricant; 4.
Swift’s reading Brean Hammond; 5. Swift and women Margaret Anne Doody; 6.
Swift’s satire and parody Michael F. Suarez, S.J.; 7. Money and economics
Patrick Kelly; 8. Language and style Ian Higgins; 9. Swift and religion Marcus
Walsh; 10. Swift the poet Pat Rogers; 11. A Tale of Tub and early prose Judith
C. Mueller; 12. Gulliver’s Travels and the later writings J. Paul Hunter; 13.
Classic Swift Seamus Deane; Further reading.
Swift's books included -- apart from individual works from
classical literature, theology, the sciences, and history ‑numerous large
collections and anthologies; consequently, the`number of authors within the sale
catalogue's 657 lots and within other inventories runs to more than 2,100. Among
these, for example, 336 travel writers come from Hakluyt's Principall
Navigations, 272 from Purchas his Pilgrims, two huge collections of travel
literature Swift used extensively in the preparation of Gulliver's Travels. There are 144 humanists, antiquaries, and
polymaths in the anthologies of Graevius,116 in that of Gronovius, and 73 in
Michael Maittaire's Opera et Fragmenta
Veterum Poetarum Latinorum (
Whether Greek and Roman classics, historical and
theological works, or the lavishly illustrated monumental collections of
Graevius and Gronovius on Roman antiquities, in every case the individual
authors have been identified, and their writings described in detail. Among the
works described in this handbook are some of the finest productions in the
history of printing, including works printed by the Elzevirs, Plantin, Froben,
the Estiennes, Hackius and Gryphius. In addition one finds some extremely rare
books of which only very few copies are extant in major reference libraries
throughout the world. These include Humphrey Prideaux's famous Marmora Oxoniensia of 1676, a richly illustrated book on ancient
marble, and valuable works on numismatics like that of Hubert Goltzius.
The handbook offers minute examination of the contents of
many important works in ecclesiastical history, such as the
Magdeburg Centuries or Baronius's
Annales, in natural philosophy, as the works of Paracelsus, and in M
literature, as the famous Cabinet
satyrique. Few other major reference works have ever provided such a
comprehensive amount of reliable and indispensable information for Swift
scholars as well as philologists, historians, theologians or bibliographers.
All individual books are described with a full collational
formula, the complete contents, and remarks on the history and transmission of
the text, on the life of the author and on the significance of his writings for
a late seventeenth‑ or early eighteenth century reader. In order to provide a
contemporary assessment of the author's status in Swift's day, the reader always
finds a transcription of the relevant entry from the English translation (in two
bulky volumes) of Moreri's The Great
Historical, Geographical and Poetical Dictionary (1694), a work also on
Swift's shelves.
The exact shelfmark of the copy inspected, whether from the
British Library, the Bodleian Library or various other major libraries or
collections all over the world, is also given with every entry. A full and
partly annotated bibliography of editions and translations, bibliographies, and
secondary sources including major biographies, monographs, and important
articles on the author and his work, is provided and enables scholars to get an
in‑depth introduction to the author in question. Supplementing the work, a
substantial bibliography of references abbreviated in the Reference section of
individual entries provides full citations for the standard handbooks,
biographies, bibliographies and monographs quoted and cited earlier in the work.
Swift's own copies have been consulted whenever their exact
locations are known in libraries of
Where Swift is known to have quoted from, referred to or
alluded to an author, all identified passages in Swift's writings are presented
and discussed. For instance, the reader finds, in the case of the Bible, ten
pages relating to Swift's use of the Bible throughout his writings, and, in the
case of Virgil, a full survey of allusions, quotations and references to the
Roman poet in Swift's works and letters.
Moreover, Swift scholarship of the last decades has
unearthed numerous references and allusions to many authors not present in
Swift's library. Thus, the second part of the work deals with what is called his
"
Bound with the general bibliography in a separate volume is
an index. Whenever the catalogued books contain information relating to a
specific passage in Swift's works, the reader will find this in the index.
References are to the volume number and page number in
The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift
edited by Herbert Davis, The Poems of
Jonathan Swift edited by Harold Williams,
Jonathan Swift: The Complete Poems, edited by Pat Rogers, and
Swift's Correspondence vol. 1, in
both the editions of Harold Williams and of David Woolley. (The
collected letters of Jonathan Swift D.D., Irish dean and celebrated author of
'Gulliver's Travels', have long been esteemed with the best to have emerged from
eighteenth century England, an age distinguished for the excellence of its
letters. In the half century from 1690 to 1740 some two hundred and thirty
contemporaries, in all walks of life, thought to preserve his autographs: among
them were his literary friends, his printers and publishers, politicians of the
day in
Thus, The Library and Reading of Jonathan Swift offers a meticulous reconstruction of Swift's intellectual contexts and gives a fresh impulse for the interpretation of his writings. At the same time, it is a major reference tool for almost any branch of the humanities.
Biography:
Jonathan Swift was born in
Anyway, Jonathan wrote a lot of stuff in between tutoring
sessions, but unfortunately burned most of it. The writing that survives shows
signs of the great satirist he was to become. But when Sir William died in 1699,
Jonathan was left scrambling for a job and eventually ended up with several odd
little Church positions back in
And now for one of my all-time favorite anecdotes. In the
early 1700's, a man named John Partridge, a cobler by trade, took up printing
almanacs to make some extra money. He challenged his readers to try their hands
at prophecy and see if they could beat Partridge's own prophetic abilities.
Well, Partridge had made some attacks on the Church of England, and in 1708,
Jonathan decided to stand up for his employer. Using the name Isaac Bickerstaff,
he prophesied "a trifle...[Partridge] will infallibly die upon the 29th of March
next, about eleven at Night, of a raging fever." At the proper time, using
another name, Jonathan announced the fulfillment of said prophecy. Partridge, in
his next almanac, protested loudly that he was still alive, but no one believed
him. The Stationer's Register had already removed his name from their rolls, and
that was good enough for most people.
Somewhere around 1716, some biographers say he married
Stella Johnson, but there's no proof of this, and you'd think there'd be some
sign if he had. Though they lived near each other for most of their lives, they
were always very properly chaperoned and may very well have never been alone
together.
Gulliver's Travels was published in 1726, Jonathan's first
big dive into prose. Though it's been pretty solidly labeled a children's book,
it's also a great satire of the times that is pretty much beyond most children.
It shows Jonathan's desire to encourage people to read deeper and not take
things for granted: readers who paid attention could match all of Gulliver's
tall tales with current events and long-term societal problems. In 1729,
Jonathan wrote one of my favorites, A Modest Proposal, supposedly written by an
intelligent and objective "political arithmetician" who had carefully studied
Jonathan died on
Irish author and journalist, dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral (
"They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they alledge, that care and vigilante, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from thieves; but honesty hat no fence against superior cunning: and since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit; where fraud is permitted or connived at, or hath no Law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone and the knave gets the advantage." (from Gulliver's Travels: 'A Voyage to Lilliput')
Jonathan Swift was born in
"As the common forms of good manners were intended for regulating the conduct of those who have weak understandings; so they have been corrupted by the persons for whose use they were contrived. For these people have fallen into a needless and endless way of multiplying ceremonies, which have been extremely troublesome to those who practice them, and insupportable to everyone else: insomuch that wise men are often more uneasy at the over civility of these refiners, than they could possibly be in the conversations of peasants or mechanics." (from 'A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding', 1754)
After William Temple's death in 1699, Swift returned to
In 1710 Swift tried to open a political career among Whigs but changed his
party and took over the Tory journal The Examiner. With the accession of
George I, the Tories lost political power. Swift withdrew to
From 1713 to 1742 Swift was the dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral. It is
thought that Swift suffered from Ménière's disease or Alzheimer's disease. Many
considered him insane - however, from the beginning of his twentieth year he had
suffered from deafness. Swift had predicted his mental decay when he was about
50 and had remarked to the poet Edward Young when they were gazing at the
withered crown of a tree: "I shall be like that tree, I shall die from the top."
He died in
Swift's religious writing is little read today. His most famous works include THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS (1697), exploring the merits of the ancients and the moderns in literature. The authors of renowned books take sides in the battle. Swift stated that "satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." A TALE OF A TUB (1704) was a religious satire. It has at its core a simple narrative of a father who has triplets and, upon his death, leaves them each a coat which will grow with them. Although the book was published anonymously, it established Swift's reputation.
In ARGUMENTS AGAINST ABOLISHING CHRISTIANITY (1708) the narrator argues for
the preservation of the Christian religion as a social necessity. When an
ignorant cobbler named John Partridge published an almanac of astrological
predictions, Swift parodied it in PREDICTION FOR THE ENSUING YEAR BY ISAAC
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. DRAPIER'S LETTERS (1724) was
against the monopoly granted by the English government to William Wood to
provide the Irish with copper coinage. In A MODEST PROPOSAL (1729) the narrator
with grotesque logic recommends, that Irish poverty can solved by the breeding
up their infants as food for the rich. When the actor Peter O'Toole read it -
for some reason - in the reopening of the Gaiety Theatre in
Gulliver's Travels (1726) - Defoe's novel about
Robinson Crusoe had appeared in 1719 and in the same vein Swift makes Lemuel
Gulliver, a surgeon and a sea captain, recount his adventures. In part one,
Gulliver is wrecked on an island where human beings are six inches tall. The
Lilliputians have wars, and conduct clearly laughable with their self-importance
and vanities - these human follies only reduced into a miniature scale.
Gulliver's second voyage takes him to Brobdingnag.
"I cannot but conclude that the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious
race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface
of the earth." (from Gulliver's
Travels: 'A Voyage to Brobdingnag') He meets giants who are practical
but do not understand abstractions. In the third voyage contemporary scientist
are held up for ridicule: science is shown to be futile unless it is applicable
to human betterment. Gulliver then travels to the flying
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