Concetti Chiave
- Jonathan Swift, born in Dublin in 1667, was a satirical writer influenced by his work with Whig exponent Sir William Temple in England.
- Swift became an Anglican priest and held the position of Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin for thirty years.
- He wrote pamphlets condemning injustices in Ireland, advocating for economic independence from England.
- His most famous work, "Gulliver’s Travels," was published in 1726, showcasing his satirical style and critique of society.
- Swift was a controversial figure known for his conservative views, political concerns, and use of satire to express his ideas.
Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin in 1667. He was educated in Ireland but left the country and went to England, where his parents were from, in 1688, at the time of the Revolution. In England he started to work for the Whig exponent Sir William Temple who encouraged Swift to start writing satirical works. In “The Battle of the Books” he supported Temple’s defense of the classics mocking the attitude of modern criticism and poetry. When Swift returned to Ireland in 1694 he became an Anglican priest and at the beginning of the 18th century he became friends with the Pope and other important writers. In 1713 he was nominated Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin and there he stayed for thirty years. While before 1713 he produced a lot of writings for the Tory administration, later he began to write pamphlets in which he condemned the injustices that had befallen Ireland (for instance “A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture” and “The Drapier’s Letters”, the former pressing for a boycott of English imports and the latter attacking the proposal of a new coinage that he believed would lead to more poverty in Ireland).
Following his works Swift began to be viewed as a national hero. In 1726 he wrote his masterpiece known as the “Gulliver’s Travels” and in 1729 in an ironic piece of work he suggested that the poor people should earn a living from selling their children as food for the rich. Swift’s irony was aiming both at the English rule in Ireland and at the Irish themselves who were passively accepting it.
His views and works made him one of the most controversial writers of the time. Overall, he was a conservative who was very concerned with politics and society. But he didn’t have an optimistic view and he wasn’t pride of England as his contemporaries were. He was a hater of man and he believed that reason, with which men were gifted, was a tool that had to be used in the right way. In the satire he found the best way to express himself and by combining his irony with a simple style and language he achieved to produce the parody.
After a few years of physical and mental decay, Swift died in 1745.
Domande da interrogazione
- ¿Cuál fue el papel de Jonathan Swift en la literatura satírica?
- ¿Cómo contribuyó Swift a la política irlandesa a través de sus escritos?
- ¿Qué visión tenía Swift sobre la humanidad y cómo la expresó en sus obras?
Jonathan Swift fue un escritor satírico destacado, conocido por obras como "The Battle of the Books" y "Gulliver’s Travels", donde utilizó la sátira para criticar tanto el dominio inglés en Irlanda como la pasividad de los irlandeses.
Swift escribió panfletos como "A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture" y "The Drapier’s Letters", en los que condenaba las injusticias en Irlanda y promovía el boicot a las importaciones inglesas y criticaba propuestas económicas perjudiciales.
Swift tenía una visión pesimista de la humanidad, considerándola irracional, y utilizó la sátira para expresar su descontento, combinando ironía con un estilo simple para crear parodias efectivas.
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