Jonathan Swift 1667 -1745 pseudonym - Isaac Bickerstaff Irish cleric, satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, and poet

Life Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin. His father, Jonathan Swift Sr., a lawyer and an English civil servant, died seven month's before his son was born. Abigail Erick, Swift's mother, was left without private income to support her family. Swift was taken or "stolen" to England by his nurse, and at the age of four he was sent back to Ireland. Swift's mother returned to England, and she left her son to her wealthy brother-in-law, Uncle Godwin.

Swift studied at Kilkenny Grammar School (1674-82), Trinity College in Dublin (1682-89), receiving his B.A. in 1686 and M.A. in 1692. At school Swift was not a very good good student and his teachers noted his headstrong behavior. When the anti-Catholic Revolution of the year 1688 aroused reaction in Ireland, Swift moved to England to the household of Sir William Temple at Moor Park, Surrey - Lady Temple was a relative of Swift's mother. He worked there as a secretary (1689-95, 1696-99), but did not like his position as a servant in the household.

In 1695 Swift was ordained in the Church of Ireland (Anglican), Dublin In 1695 Swift was ordained in the Church of Ireland (Anglican), Dublin. While in staying in Moor Park, Swift also was the teacher of a young girl, Esther Johnson, whom he called Stella. When she grew up she become an important person in his life. Stella moved to Ireland to live near him and followed him on his travels to London. Their relationship was a constant source of gossips. According to some speculations, they were married in 1716.

Throughout the reign of Queen Anne (1702-14), Swift was one of the central characters in the literary and political life of London. From 1695 to 1696 Swift was the vicar of Kilroot. Between the years 1707 and 1709 Swift was an emissary for the Irish clergy in London. Swift contributed to the 'Bickerstaff Papers' and to the Tattler in 1708-09. He was a cofounder of the Scriblerus Club, which included such members as Pope, Gay, Congreve,

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."

Major Works A TALE OF A TUB, 1704 - THE BATTLE OF BOOKS, 1704 – ARGUMENT AGAINST ABOLISHING CHRISTIANITY, 1711 JOURNAL TO STELLA, (written 1710-13, published 1766) PROPOSAL FOR THE UNIVERSAL USE OF IRISH MANUFACTURE, 1720

TRAVELS INTO SEVERAL REMOTE NATIONS OF THE WORLD. BY LEMUEL GULLIVER A MODEST PROPOSAL, 1729 POLITE AND INGENIOUS CONVERSATION, 1738 VERSES ON THE DEATH OF DR SWIFT, 1739

THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS (1697), exploring the merits of the ancients and the moderns in literature. A TALE OF A TUB (1704) was a religious satire.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST ABOLISHING CHRISTIANITY (1708) the narrator argues for the preservation of religion as a social necessity. DRAPIER'S LETTERS (1724) was against the monopoly granted by the English government to William Wood to provide the Irish with copper coinage.

Satire A work or manner that blends a censorious attitude with humour and wit for improving human institutions or humanity. Satirists attempt through laughter not so much to tear down as to inspire a remodelling. Swift once stated that "satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." Connected terms: sarcasm (a caustic or bitter expression of strong disapproval intended to hurt, personal), irony (a figure of speech, refers to the recognition of reality different from appearance)

A MODEST PROPOSAL (1729) the narrator recommends with grotesque logic, that Irish poverty can be solved by the breeding up their infants as food for the rich.

The Gulliver´s Travels

Part I: A Voyage To Lilliput . On his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and awakes to find himself a prisoner of a race of 6 inch (15cm) tall people, inhabitants of the neighbouring and rival countries of Lilliput and Blefuscu . After giving assurances of his good behaviour he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favourite of the court. There follow Gulliver's observations on the Court of Lilliput, which is intended to satirise the court of then King George. The feuding between the Lilliputians and the Blefuscudans is meant to represent the feuding countries of England and France, but the reason for the war is meant to satirize the feud between Catholics and Protestants.

Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag While exploring a new country, Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is 72 feet (22 meters) tall (the scale of Lilliput is approximately 12:1, of Brobdingnag1:12) who treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money. He is then bought by the Queen of Brobdingnag and kept as a favourite at court. In between small adventures he discusses the state of Europe with the King, who is not impressed. On a trip to the seaside, his "travelling box" is seized by a giant eagle and dropped into the sea where he is picked up by sailors and returned to England. Much of Swift's satirical focus is on people who cannot see past their own ways, their own power, or their own beliefs.

Part III: A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibari, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg and Japan Gulliver's ship is attacked by pirates and he is marooned on a desolate rocky island. Fortunately he is rescued by the flying island of Laputa a kingdom devoted to the arts of music and mathematics but utterly unable to use these for practical ends. The device described simply as The Engine is possibly the first literary description in history of something resembling a computer. Gulliver is then taken to Balnibari to await a Dutch trader who can take him on to Japan and thence to England. While there, he tours the country as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by blind pursuit of science without practical results in a satire on the Royal Society and its experiments. He also encounters the struldbrugs, unfortunate creatures who are both immortal and very, very old.

Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms Gulliver returns to sea where his crew mutinies in order to become pirates. He is abandoned ashore and comes first upon a race of (apparently) hideous deformed creatures. Shortly thereafter he meets a horse and comes to understand that the horses (in their language Houyhnhnm or "the perfection of nature") are the rulers and the deformed creatures ("Yahoos“) are human beings in the basest form. Gulliver becomes a member of the horse's household, and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnm.The Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization and he is expelled. Most famously, William Thackeray described it as "filthy in word, filthy in thought, furious, raging and obscene“.

Gulliver´s Travels – Major Characters Gulliver -  The narrator and protagonist of the story. Although Lemuel Gulliver’s vivid and detailed style of narration makes it clear that he is intelligent and well educated, his perceptions are naïve and gullible. He has virtually no emotional life, Gulliver’s naïveté makes the satire possible, as we pick up on things that Gulliver does not notice.

The Emperor - The ruler of Lilliput The Emperor  - The ruler of Lilliput. Like all Lilliputians, the emperor is fewer than six inches tall. The emperor is both a satire of the autocratic ruler and a strangely serious portrait of political power. The King -  The king of Brobdingnag, who, in contrast to the emperor of Lilliput, seems to be a true intellectual. He is thus a figure of rational thought who somewhat prefigures the Houyhnhnms in Book IV.

Lord Munodi -  A lord of Lagado, capital of the underdeveloped land beneath Laputa, who hosts Gulliver and gives him a tour of the country on Gulliver’s third voyage. Munodi is a rare example of practical-minded intelligence both in Lagado, where the applied sciences are wildly impractical, and in Laputa, where no one even considers practicality a virtue. Lord Munodi serves as a reality check for Gulliver on his third voyage, an objective-minded contrast to the theoretical delusions of the other inhabitants of Laputa and Lagado.

Lilliputians and Blefuscudians -  Two races of miniature people whom Gulliver meets on his first voyage. Lilliputians and Blefuscudians are prone to conspiracies and jealousies, The two races have been in a longstanding war with each over the interpretation of a reference in their common holy scripture to the proper way to eat eggs. Gulliver helps the Lilliputians defeat the Blefuscudian navy and receives a warm welcome in the court of Blefuscu, by which Swift satirizes the arbitrariness of international relations.

Brobdingnagians - Giants whom Gulliver meets on his second voyage Brobdingnagians  -  Giants whom Gulliver meets on his second voyage. Brobdingnagians are basically reasonable and kindly people governed by a sense of justice.

Laputans -  Absentminded intellectuals who live on the floating island of Laputa, encountered by Gulliver on his third voyage. The Laputans are parodies of theoreticians, who have scant regard for any practical results of their own research. In the larger context of Gulliver’s journeys, the Laputans are a parody of the excesses of theoretical pursuits and the uselessness of purely abstract knowledge.

Yahoos -  Unkempt humanlike beasts who live in servitude to the Houyhnhnms. They are naked, filthy, and extremely primitive in their eating habits. Yahoos are not capable of government, and thus they are kept as servants to the Houyhnhnms. They repel Gulliver with their lascivious sexual appetites, Yet despite Gulliver’s revulsion for these disgusting creatures, he ends his writings referring to himself as a Yahoo, just as the Houyhnhnms do as they regretfully evict him from their realm. Thus, “Yahoo” becomes another term for human, at least in the semideranged and self-loathing mind of Gulliver at the end of his fourth journey.

Houyhnhnms -  Rational horses who maintain a simple, peaceful society governed by reason and truthfulnes. Houyhnhnms are like ordinary horses, except that they are highly intelligent and deeply wise. They live in a sort of socialist republic, with the needs of the community put before individual desires. Houyhnhnms thus are a measure of the extent to which Gulliver has become a misanthrope, or “human-hater”, he is certainly, at the end, a horse lover and back in England he relates better with his horses than with his human family.

Political Parties TRAMECKSAN -  ALSO KNOWN AS THE HIGH-HEELS, A LILLIPUTIAN POLITICAL GROUP REMINISCENT OF THE BRITISH TORIES. TRAMECKSAN POLICIES ARE SAID TO BE MORE AGREEABLE TO THE ANCIENT CONSTITUTION OF LILLIPUT, AND WHILE THE HIGH-HEELS APPEAR GREATER IN NUMBER THAN THE LOW-HEELS, THEIR POWER IS LESSER. UNLIKE THE KING, THE CROWN PRINCE IS BELIEVED TO SYMPATHIZE WITH THE TRAMECKSAN, WEARING ONE LOW HEEL AND ONE HIGH HEEL, CAUSING HIM TO LIMP  

SLAMECKSAN -  THE LOW-HEELS, A LILLIPUTIAN POLITICAL GROUP REMINISCENT OF THE BRITISH WHIGS. THE KING HAS ORDAINED THAT ALL GOVERNMENTAL ADMINISTRATORS MUST BE SELECTED FROM THIS PARTY, MUCH TO THE RESENTMENT OF THE HIGH-HEELS OF THE REALM. THUS, WHILE THERE ARE FEWER SLAMECKSAN THAN TRAMECKSAN IN LILLIPUT, THEIR POLITICAL POWER IS GREATER. THE KING’S OWN SYMPATHIES WITH THE SLAMECKSAN ARE EVIDENT IN THE SLIGHTLY LOWER HEELS HE WEARS AT COURT.