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Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish writer and satirist born in 1667. He was raised by his uncle after becoming fatherless and had an unsuccessful career at Trinity College in Dublin. He later worked for and wrote for Sir William Temple. Some of his major works include Tale of a Tub, Battle of the Books, and Gulliver's Travels. Throughout his career, Swift kept close touch with affairs in both Ireland and England and played a political role between 1707-1710, though his career in England ended when the Tory party lost power in 1714 after Queen Anne's death.

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111 views

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish writer and satirist born in 1667. He was raised by his uncle after becoming fatherless and had an unsuccessful career at Trinity College in Dublin. He later worked for and wrote for Sir William Temple. Some of his major works include Tale of a Tub, Battle of the Books, and Gulliver's Travels. Throughout his career, Swift kept close touch with affairs in both Ireland and England and played a political role between 1707-1710, though his career in England ended when the Tory party lost power in 1714 after Queen Anne's death.

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Daniela José Borrego López
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish writer and satirist, born on November 30, 1667.
Fatherless, he was raised and educated by his uncle Godwin, but he eventually returned to England to live with his mother after an
unsuccessful career at Trinity College in Dublin.
Back in England, he started living in Moor Park in 1689 to work with Sir William Temple, a distant relative of his mother, and started to
work for him. During that time, he read and wrote for Temple, and kept his accounts as well, becoming a trustful employer for him. In
1693, Temple introduced Jonathan to William III, who sent him to London to urge the King to consent to a bill for Triennial Parliament.
In later years, Swift grew tired of the job and left Moor Park, but he was then persuaded by Temple to come back and spent his time
writing Temple’s memoirs to later publish them. In 1699, after William Temple’s death, Swift went back to Dublin as chaplain and
secretary to the earl of Berkeley, who was going to Ireland as well as the lord of justice.
At twenty-two years old, Swift found an eight-year-old girl who went by Sarah Johnson, daughter of a late Edward Johnson. She lived
with her mother and sister as companions of Temple’s widowed sister, Lady Giffard. Jonathan Swift became Sarah’s playfellow and
teacher.
Sarah would later be introduced as Estella in A Journal to Estella, a series of letters written by Swift between his arrival in England
(1710-1713) where he addressed Esther and her companion, Rebecca Dingley, who were living in Dublin.
Jonathan Swift anonymously published Tale of a Tub, one of his major works, in 1704. Such work consists of three associated pieces:
the Tale itself, which is a satire against the numerous and gross corruptions in religion and learning; the mock-heroic Battle of the Books,
which he wrote during the time he was working with Temple’s memoirs; and the Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of
the Spirit, which ridiculed the manner of worship and preaching of religious enthusiasts at that period.
Regarding his writings, we know that he kept in close touch with affairs in both Ireland and England. One example of that is Discourse
of the Contests and Dissensions between the Nobles and the Commons in Athens and Rome, an essay where Swift defends the English
constitutional balance of power between the monarchy and the two houses of Parliament as a bulwark against tyranny.
His works brought him to the attention of a circle of Whig writers led by Joseph Addison, but Swift, even though he was a Whig by
birth, education, and political principle, he was uneasy by their policies because of his loyalty of the Anglican church. Despite that, Swift
did not renounce his essentially Whiggish convictions regarding the nature of government, he did not believe in the old Tory Theory of
the kings that hold divine rights. He did hold on of his belief that the ultimate power in the English constitution, had come to be
exercised jointly by kings, lords, and commons.
Swift played a political role in between the years 1707 and 1710, succeeding in changing several petitions he had made. However, his
career in England came to an end when George I rose to power after Queen Anne’s death in 1714 and the Tory party was ruined – which
made him go back to Ireland.
In 1726, Swift published one of his greatest and most important satires, Gulliver’s Travels.

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