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Jonathan Swift - biography (1_swift.doc)

Jonathan Swift - biography

Jonathan Swift was born on November 30,1667 at No. 8, Hoey's Court, Dublin, and was the second child and only son of Jonathan and Abigail Erick (or Herrick) Swift, who were English immigrants.

He studied at Kilkenny Grammar School (1674-82) and at Trinity College in Dublin (1682-89). In 1695 Swift was ordained in the Church of Ireland (Anglican), Dublin. He became an assistant to author and diplomat Sir William Temple in Moor Park in Surrey. He left this position after Temple died in 1699 to earn his priest's ordination, and picked up his first parish in Kilroot, near Belfast. From 1713 to 1742 he was the dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Swift continued to work as a clergyman in Ireland, travelling throughout the United Kingdom, writing on both secular and insular subject matter. He also found a heavy interest in politics, 1710 he 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. 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, which included such member as Pope, Gay and Congreve.

As chaplain to Lord Berkeley, he spent much of his time in Dublin and travelled to London frequently over the next ten years. In 1701, Swift published, anonymously, a political pamphlet, A Discourse on the Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome.

During this mobile time Swift began to explore his frustrations with society through his writings and gained fame with his essays.  He wrote about the poverty he saw amongst the people, he wrote about his friendships with Esther Johnson and Esther Vanhomrigh, he wrote about the typical daily life of city folk, and he wrote about the problems he witnessed in the social order. He believed that women deserved to be educated, that social conventions were outdated and must be changed, and that qualities of mind should be the foundations of love. Perhaps because of his more modern and honest philosophy, Swift fell in love with Esther Vanhomrigh. There is a great mystery and controversy over Swift's relationship with Esther Johnson. Swift furnished Hester with the nickname "Vanessa" and she features as one of the main characters in his poem Cadenus and Vanessa. Unfortunately, the two lovers never married, for Esther died in 1722, before the publication of Gulliver's Travels. Swift recorded his experiences and thoughts during this difficult time in a long series of letters to Esther Johnson, later collected and published as The Journal to Stella.

From such observations in government, religion, love and gender inequality, Swift produced an enormous body of work. His writings fall into several categories, including poetry, short stories, political essays, and novels. Some highlights include A Description of Morning, A Description of a City Shower, Progress of Marriage, A Lady's Dressing Room and of course, Gulliver's Travels, published in 1726.

Jonathan Swift was a bitter satirist. At this time there was a fierce argument about the abilities and the books of the ancient and the moderns. In this battle of the books Swift supported his friend Temple by writing An Account of the Battle between the Ancient and Modern Books in St. James's Library – or “The Battle of Books” (1697) which explores the merits of the ancients and the moderns in literature. His Tale of a Tub (1704), a religious satire, attacked the religious ideas, and annoyed a large number of readers. An example of his bitterness may be seen in the satirical essay A Modest Proposal (1729), which contains the suggestion that the poor, who needed money, should sell their children to the rich as food. This kind of satire seriously accepts the evils of the world, and goes on to show their extreme results. 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 his book Prediction For The Ensuing Year By Issac Bickerstaff. 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.

Once in Ireland, however, Swift began to turn his pamphleteering skills in support of Irish causes, producing some of his most memorable works; Proposal for Universal Use of Irish Manufacture (1720) and The Drapier's Letters (1724); earning him the status of an Irish patriot. Also during these years, he began writing his masterpiece, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts, by Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships, better known as Gulliver's Travels. Much of the material reflects his political experiences of the preceding decade.

Swift lived a full life into his seventies, an especially long lifespan in his time. In 1742, he was declared of unsound mind, due to senility and excessive dizziness that is now known as the disease Meniere's syndrome, an illness of the inner ear, which causes dizziness. After descending into a life of privacy and dementia, Swift died on October 19, 1745. The following is W.B.Yeats's poetic version of the Latin epitaph which Swift composed for himself:

Swift has sailed into his rest;
Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller;
He served human liberty.