Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel

Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel
Author: John Stubbs
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 840
Release: 2017-02-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0393634159

A rich and riveting portrait of the man behind Gulliver’s Travels, by a “vivid, ardent, and engaging” (New York Times Book Review) author. One of Europe’s most important literary figures, Jonathan Swift was also an inspired humorist, a beloved companion, and a conscientious Anglican minister—as well as a hoaxer and a teller of tales. His anger against abuses of power would produce the most famous satires of the English language: Gulliver’s Travels as well as the Drapier Papers and the unparalleled Modest Proposal, in which he imagined the poor of Ireland farming their infants for the tables of wealthy colonists. John Stubbs’s biography captures the dirt and beauty of a world that Swift both scorned and sought to amend. It follows Swift through his many battles, for and against authority, and in his many contradictions, as a priest who sought to uphold the dogma of his church; as a man who was quite prepared to defy convention, not least in his unshakable attachment to an unmarried woman, his “Stella”; and as a writer whose vision showed that no single creed holds all the answers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, in Jonathan Swift Stubbs has found the perfect subject for this masterfully told biography of a reluctant rebel—a voice of withering disenchantment unrivaled in English.

A Bibliography of the Writings of Jonathan Swift

A Bibliography of the Writings of Jonathan Swift
Author: Herman Teerink
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 488
Release: 2016-11-11
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 1512807664

This work is an analytic bibliography of the writings of Jonathan Swift, containing a listing of every known edition or issue of Swift's work down to the year 1814 (except for the section "Biography and Criticism" which extends from 1709 to 1895). In this revised edition, Herman Teerink has added full collations of the works referred to. In addition, the titles of many 18th century mutations or parodies of Swift have been included together with works which allude to Swift or his writings. Arthur H. Scouten, a University of Pennsylvania professor of English and author of many bibliographical articles on Swift, who has carried on Dr. Teerink's work and prepared this volume for press, has consulted 18th century scholars and bibliographers. With their advice, he has kept the original Teerink numbers, since they are the common reference numbers among Swift scholars and are listed in dealers' catalogues. Because the new material and arrangement put these numbers out of order, they have been listed in a table at the beginning of the book with all the pages they appear on. So that they will not have to be sought throughout the entire volume, all the Faulkner editions have been placed together and all the printings of Gulliver's Travels have been collected in one section, where they are arranged chronologically by country. A full physical description of all important books and pamphlets, including those discovered since 1937 (the first edition), has been provided. The work has been brought up-to-date with the bibliographical findings of Swift scholarship of the past twenty-five years. A number of pieces apocryphally attributed to Swift have been deleted or placed in the "Doubtful" section. Finally, entries of books and pamphlets containing contemporary comment on a work by Swift have been placed where Swift's work itself is entered. This book is especially rich in its listings of translations of Swift's works into foreign languages. Also, since the first edition (A Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of Jonathan Swift, D.D.) has long been out of print, this volume will be invaluable to book dealers, bibliophiles, and scholars, teachers, and students of English literature.

The Snare in the Constitution

The Snare in the Constitution
Author: Zouheir Jamoussi
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 460
Release: 2009-10-02
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 144381542X

This comparative study of Defoe’s and Swift’s treatments of liberty embraces what seemed the most significant parts of their vast, multifaceted oeuvres, both non-fictional and fictional. Defoe’s and Swift’s positions with regard to the English constitution and liberties are assessed here through a close examination of their views on contemporary religious and political issues. Moreover, their involvement in the debates on the liberties and constitutions of Scotland and Ireland, respectively, could not be left out of this comparative approach to their treatments of liberty in the broader sense. Also of primary concern is the liberty of expression and of the press underlined (though ambiguously) by both authors as an essential precondition for any debate, political or otherwise. The antithetic relationship between “snare” and “liberty” is examined in the context of the analogy between the political constitution (the body politic) and the human constitution (the natural body) commonly drawn in early 18th century political writings, including Defoe’s and Swift’s. This analogy provides appropriate means of identifying important links within, as well as between, the two authors’ works, since both focused on “snares” in the political and human constitutions. The part of the study devoted to the “snare” in human nature mainly considers the fictional works. Much attention has been given in this regard to the contrasting ways in which both authors have dealt with those “snares” and the interaction between the human and the political constitutions.