- Write in brief about your favourite major/minor writer of the age.
Jonathan Swift- Major Writer of the Neo-Classical Age.
Life:
Born in 1667 in Dublin, Ireland, Swift was raised by his Uncle Godwin. Swift's father, a lawyer also named Jonathan Swift, died of syphilis seven months before the birth of his son. Allegedly, his father stated that he contracted syphilis not from another woman but from "dirty sheets" while travelling out of town. Godwin was close friends with Sir John Temple, a prominent Irish lawyer and politician who served in the House of Commons in both Ireland and England at various times.
In 1682, at the age of fifteen, Swift enrolled at Trinity College to pursue a degree that would prepare him to join the priesthood. After receiving a Bachelor's Degree, Swift continued to study for his Master's Degree but was forced to abandon his studies when political turmoil brought on by the Glorious Revolution of 1688 caused him to flee Ireland. Through his Uncle Godwin's connections, Swift gained employment with John Temple's son, William Temple, in Surrey, England, serving as Temple's secretary. Here, Damrosch makes references to rumours that William Temple was in fact Swift's biological father, adding that while it is "not impossible," it also cannot be proven.
A prominent diplomat, Temple entrusted Swift with several important tasks. In at least one instance, Swift travelled to London on Temple's behalf to negotiate with the throne over a proposed bill. It was at Temple's Moor Park estate that Swift first met Hester Johnson (sometimes styled as "Esther Johnson"). The daughter of Temple's housekeeper, Hester was only nine years old when the twenty-two-year-old Swift first arrived at Moor Park. He became her tutor, and as the years went on, their relationship grew more intimate. Complicating this already thorny relationship is the fact that Hester--whom Swift took to calling "Stella"--may actually have been Swift's half-sister. In addition to the unsubstantiated rumours that Temple was Swift's biological father, there's somewhat stronger evidence to suggest Temple was Hester's biological father as well. For Damrosch's part, he concludes that there is significant evidence to suggest this is the case, though he can't say the same for the rumours about Swift's parentage.
Despite the important work he frequently did for Temple, Swift sensed that his political career was going nowhere. So, he decided to once again pursue the priesthood, moving back to Ireland. He managed to obtain the title of prebendary, a relatively low-ranking dignitary in the Church of Ireland. Isolated to a small, remote parish in the town of Kilroot, Swift was more or less miserable. After around two years in Kilroot, Swift returned to Temple's employ until his boss died in 1699. Swift found, however, that his political career was in even worse shape after Temple's death than when he was alive. After once again abandoning politics, Swift managed to become a minister to a small congregation in Laracor, about twenty miles outside Dublin. Despite being no closer to the power centres of national politics or religion, Swift appears to have been rather content in this position, spending his free time gardening and writing.
Swift's first major work was A Tale of the Tub which he published in 1704. A vicious satire on religion and English morals, the work all but torpedoed any hopes he still had of advancing his career in the Church of Ireland. Swift moved back to London where he exchanged regular correspondence with his "Stella." These letters survived in the form of A Journal to Stella which was published after Swift's death. Damrosch dissects these letters in search of definitive evidence that their relationship was sexual in nature. Whatever the case, the letters are playful, intimate, and in some cases sexually charged. The two use a kind of secret language at times, and in one letter Swift calls Stella a "wheedling slut." Around this time, Swift carried on an even more ambiguous relationship with an even younger woman named Esther Vanhomrigh, whom he nicknamed "Vanessa."
Meanwhile, Swift's writing grew more explicitly political, culminating in 1729's masterpiece A Modest Proposal, in which Swift satirized the cruel attitudes of the rich toward the poor by suggesting that impoverished Irishmen could make a living by selling their children as food for the wealthy. Three years earlier, Swift published his most well-known long-form work, the novel Gulliver's Travels.
Swift lived until 1745 but suffered from extreme dementia during his final years. Of his worsening mental illness, Damrosch quotes T.S. Eliot who remarked, "Real irony is an expression of suffering, and the greatest ironist was the one who suffered the most - Swift."
Major Works:
A Tale of a Tub:
Swift's first major prose work, A Tale of a Tub, demonstrates many of the themes and stylistic techniques he would employ in his later work. It is at once wildly playful and funny while being pointed and harshly critical of its targets. In its main thread, the Tale recounts the exploits of three sons, representing the main threads of Christianity, who receive a bequest from their father of a coat each, with the added instructions to make no alterations whatsoever. However, the sons soon find that their coats have fallen out of current fashion, and begin to look for loopholes in their father's will that will let them make the needed alterations. As each finds his own means of getting around their father's admonition, they struggle with each other for power and dominance. Inserted into this story, in alternating chapters, the narrator includes a series of whimsical "digressions" on various subjects.
- Write in brief about your favourite work from the Neoclassical Age.
Gulliver's Travels records the pretended four voyages of one Lemuel Gulliver and his adventures in four astounding countries. The first book tells of his voyage and shipwreck in Lilliput, where the inhabitants are about as tall as one's thumb, and all their acts and motives are on the same dwarfish scale. In the petty quarrels of these dwarfs, we are supposed to see the littleness of humanity. The statesmen who obtain place and favour by cutting monkey capers on the tight rope before their sovereign, and the two great parties, the Littleendians and Bigendians, who plunge the country into civil war over the momentous question of whether an egg should be broken on its big or on its little end, are satires on the politics of Swift's own day and generation. The style is simple and convincing; the surprising situations and adventures are as absorbing as those of Defoe's masterpiece, and altogether it is the most interesting of Swift's satires.
On the second voyage, Gulliver is abandoned in Brobdingnag, where the inhabitants are giants, and everything is done on an enormous scale. The meanness of humanity seems even more detestable given the greatness of these superior beings. When Gulliver talks about his own people, their ambitions, wars, and conquests, the giants can only wonder that such great venom could exist in such little insects.
At the beginning of the next chapter (chapter VII), Gulliver explains why he has told us this:
"Nothing but an extreme Love of Truth could have hindered me from concealing this part of my Story."
He has put the king’s judgement into his narrative not because he feels chastened by it, but simply because he believes in recording things. He calls this his ‘extreme Love of Truth’, a boast that draws attention to his failure to understand how his boasts have revealed some of the worst aspects of human nature.
 |
| This woodcut shows a miniature Gulliver sailing in a trough, entertaining the queen of Brobdingnag and her courtiers. |
To justify his veracity, he has to tell us everything, including how he dealt with ‘the Necessities of Nature’ whilst in Lilliput:
The best Expedient I could think on was to creep into my house, which I accordingly did; and shutting the Gate after me, I went as far as the Length of my Chain would suffer, and discharged my body of that uneasy load. But this was the only time I was ever guilty of so uncleanly an action; for which I cannot but hope the candid reader will give some allowance after he has maturely and impartially considered my case, and the Distress I was in. (Part 1, ch. 2).
Gulliver likes to feel that there is nothing that he shirks telling us.
In the third voyage, Gulliver continues his adventures in Laputa, and this is a satire upon all the scientists and philosophers. Laputa is a flying island, held up in the air by a loadstone; and all the professors of the famous academy at Lagado are of the same airy constitution. The philosopher who worked eight years to extract sunshine from cucumbers is typical of Swift's satiric treatment of all scientific problems. It is in this voyage that we hear of the Struldbrugs, a ghastly race of men who are doomed to live upon the earth after losing hope and the desire for life. The picture is even more terrible given the last years of Swift's own life, in which he was compelled to live on, a burden to himself and his friends.
In these three voyages, the evident purpose is to strip off the veil of habit and custom, with which men deceive themselves, and show the crude vices of humanity as Swift fancies he sees them. In the fourth voyage, the merciless satire is carried out to its logical conclusion. This brings us to the land of the Houyhnhnms, in which horses, superior and intelligent creatures, are the ruling animals. All our interest, however, is centred on the Yahoos, a frightful race, having the form and appearance of men, but living in unspeakable degradation.
In his fourth voyage, he reaches the land of the unpronounceable Houyhnhnms, talking horses whose virtues overwhelm him. Seeing the disgusting Yahoos, driven only by appetite, he sees a version of himself and turns to loathe his species. There has been much debate about whether we should admire the Houyhnhnms, ascetic and rational as they are. They cannot ‘say the thing that is not’ – their phrase for lying that might as well be their description of irony (Swift’s own speciality), which must also be beyond their comprehension. But, as ever, what matters most is Gulliver’s thinking. He is utterly seduced by their truthfulness. Swift’s genius is to see that pride and self-disgust are near neighbours. Gulliver begins his voyages as a prideful modern man, confident in the values of his culture; he ends as a maddened misanthrope, and, disturbingly, the unwitting object of the book’s satire.
 |
| Illustrations of the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos. |
No comments:
Post a Comment