Jonathan Swift
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Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish writer from the late 1600s and early 1700s who used sharp satire and essays to comment on politics, religion, and society. He remains important because his witty and often biting works, which criticized human nature and power, continue to be widely read and studied today.
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Jonathan Swift (November 30, 1667 – October 19, 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for Whigs then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin. He is remembered for works such as Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, Drapier's Letters, The Battle of the Books, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, and A Tale of a Tub. Swift is probably the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less
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36 objects attributed to Jonathan Swift, held across European museums, libraries & archives · via Europeana
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Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. He was the author of the satirical prose novel Gulliver's Travels (1726) and the creator of the fictional island of Lilliput. He is regarded by many as the greatest satirist of the Georgian era and one of the foremost prose authors in the history of English and world literature.
Swift also authored works such as A Tale of a Tub (1704) and An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1708). He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—including Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M. B. Drapier—or anonymously. He was a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles. In 1713, he was appointed the dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swift". His trademark deadpan and ironic style of writing, particularly in later works such as A Modest Proposal (1729), has led to such satire being subsequently termed as "Swiftian". He is also credited with inventing the popular woman's name "Vanessa" through his poem Cadenus and Vanessa (1726).
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1667 births1745 deaths17th-century Anglo-Irish people17th-century Irish poets18th-century Anglo-Irish people18th-century English novelists18th-century Irish Anglican priests18th-century Irish male writers18th-century Irish novelists18th-century Irish poets18th-century Irish writers18th-century pseudonymous writers
