SWIFT`S BIOGRAPHY
Jonathan Swift was born
on November 30, 1667 in Dublin, Ireland, the son of Protestant Anglo-Irish
parents: his ancestors had been Royalists, and all his life he would be a
High-Churchman. His father, also Jonathan, died a few months before he was
born, upon which his mother, Abigail, returned to England, leaving her son
behind, in the care of relatives. In 1673, at the age of six, Swift began his
education at Kilkenny Grammar School, which was, at the time, the best in
Ireland. Between 1682 and 1686 he attended, and graduated from, Trinity College
in Dublin, though he was not, apparently, an exemplary student.
In 1688 William of Orange invaded England, initiating the Glorious
Revolution with Dublin in political turmoil, Trinity College was closed, and an
ambitious Swift took the opportunity to go to England, where he hoped to gain.
In England, in 1689, he became secretary to Sir William Temple, a diplomat and
man of letters, at Moor Park in Surrey. There Swift read extensively in his
patron's library, and met Esther Johnson, who would become his
"Stella," and it was there, too, that he began to suffer from
Meniere's Disease, a disturbance of the inner ear which produces nausea and
vertigo, and which was little understood in Swift's day. In 1690, at the advice
of his doctors, Swift returned to Ireland, but the following year he was back
with Temple in England. He visited Oxford in 1691: in 1692, with Temple's
assistance, he received an M. A. degree from that University, and published his
first poem: on reading it, John Dryden, a distant relation, is said to have
remarked "Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet."
In 1694, still anxious to advance himself within the Church of England,
he left Temple's household and returned to Ireland to take holy orders. In 1695
he was ordained as a priest in the Church of Ireland, the Irish branch of the
Anglican Church, and the following year he returned to Temple and Moor Park.
Between 1696 and 1699 Swift composed most of his first great work, A Tale of a Tub, a prose satire on the
religious extremes represented by Roman Catholicism and Calvinism, and in 1697
he wrote The Battle of the Books, a
satire defending Temple's conservative but besieged position in the
contemporary literary controversy as to whether the works of the
"Ancients" -- the great authors of classical antiquity -- were to be
preferred to those of the "Moderns." In 1699 Temple died, and Swift
travelled to Ireland as chaplain and secretary to the Earl of Berkeley.
In 1700 he was instituted Vicar of Laracor -- provided, that is, with
what was known as a "Living" -- and given a prebend in St. Patrick's
Cathedral, Dublin. These appointments were a bitter disappointment for a man
who had longed to remain in England. In 1701 Swift was awarded a D. D. from
Dublin University, and published his first political pamphlet, supporting the
Whigs against the Tories. 1704 saw the anonymous publication of A Tale of a Tub, The Battle of the Books, and The
Mechanical Operation of the Spirit.
In 1707 Swift was sent to London as emissary of Irish clergy seeking
remission of tax on Irish clerical incomes. His requests were rejected,
however, by the Whig government and by Queen Anne, who suspected him of being
irreligious. While in London he met Esther Vanhomrigh, who would become his
"Vanessa." During the next few years he went back and forth between
Ireland and England, where he was involved--largely as an observer rather than
a participant--in the highest English political circles.
In 1708 Swift met Addison and Steele, and published his Bickerstaff Papers, satirical attacks
upon an astrologer, John Partridge, and a series of ironical pamphlets on
church questions, including An Argument
Against Abolishing Christianity.
In 1710, which saw the publication of "A Description of a City
Shower," Swift, disgusted with their alliance with the Dissenters, fell
out with Whigs allied himself with the Tories, and became the editor of the
Tory newspaper The Examiner. Between
1710 and 1713 he also wrote the famous series of letters to Esther Johnson
which would eventually be published as The Journal to Stella. In 1713 Swift was
installed as Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin -- a promotion which
was, again, a disappointment.
The Scriblerus Club, whose members included Swift, Pope, Congreve, Gay,
and Arbuthnot, was founded in 1714. In the same year, much more unhappily for
Swift, Queen Anne died, and George I took the throne. With his accession the
Tories fell from power, and Swift's hopes for preferment in England came to an
end: he returned to Ireland "to die," as he says, "like a
poisoned rat in a hole." In 1716 Swift may or may not have married Esther
Johnson. A period of literary silence and personal depression ensued, but
beginning in 1718, he broke the silence, and began to publish a series of
powerful tracts on Irish problems.
In 1720 he began work upon Gulliver's
Travels, intended, as he says in a letter to Pope, "to vex the world,
not to divert it." 1724-25 saw the publication of The Drapier Letters, which gained Swift enormous popularity in
Ireland, and the completion of Gulliver's Travels. The progressive darkness of
the latter work is an indication of the extent to which his misanthropic
tendencies became more and more markedly manifest, had taken greater and
greater hold upon his mind. In 1726 he visited England once again, and stayed
with Pope at Twickenham: in the same year Gulliver's
Travels was published.
Swift's final trip to England took place in 1727. Between 1727 and 1736
publication of five volumes of Swift-Pope Miscellanies.
"Stella" died in 1728. In the following year A Modest Proposal was
published. 1731 saw the publication of Swift's ghastly "A Beautiful Young
Nymph Going to Bed."
By 1735, when a collected edition of his Works was published in Dublin,
his Meniere's Disease became more acute, resulting in periods of dizziness and
nausea: at the same time, prematurely, his memory was beginning to deteriorate.
During 1738 he slipped gradually into senility, and finally suffered a
paralytic stroke: in 1742 guardians were officially appointed to care for his
affairs.
Swift died on October 19, 1745.
According to his fellow Irish poet William Butler Yeats, "Swift sleeps
under the greatest epitaph in history." The words are inscribed, as Swift
willed, "in large letters, deeply cut, and strongly gilded":
Ubi Saeva Indignatio
Ulterius
Cor Lacerare Nequit
Abi Viator
Et Imitare Si Poteris
Strenuum Pro Virili
Libertatis Vindicatorem
The following is Yeats's poetic version (a very free translation) of
this Latin epitaph :
Swift sailed into his rest;
Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty
FROM:
David Cody, Associate Professor of English, Hartwick College
Compiled
by Ainhoa Sanchis Asensi
Academic year 1999/2000
10 February 2000
© a.r.e.a./Dr. Vicente Forés López
© Ainhoa Sanchis Asensi
Universitat de Valčncia Press
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