Swift, Jonathan

(1667-1745)

   Born in Dublin-his father was a lawyer whose family had gone to Ireland after the Restoration-he attended Trinity College and from 1689 to 1699 was secretary to Sir William Temple in Surrey. After Temple's death, Swift was ordained an Anglican priest and returned to Ireland, where he served as dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, from 1713. He suffered from what is now believed to be Ménière's syndrome-a condition of vertigo, nausea, and deafness. In the autumn of 1739 a great celebration was held in his honor. Following a stroke in 1742 he was declared incapable of caring for himself and guardians were appointed. He was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral beside Esther Johnson, his lifelong friend. Swift was a prolific poet, and a brilliant satirist. Besides the celebrated novel Gulliver's Travels (1726), he wrote such shorter works as a Tale of a Tub (1704) and A Modest Proposal (1729). Some of his poems: "Advice to a Parson," "Advice to the Grub Street Verse-Writers," "Apollo Outwitted," "Clever Tom Clinch Going to Be Hanged," "The Author's Manner of Living," "The Description of a Salamander," "The Fable of Midas."

   Sources: Anthology of Poems on Affairs of State: Augustan Satirical Verse, 1660-1714. George de F. Lord, ed. Yale University Press, 1975. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Microsoft Encarta 2006 (DVD). Microsoft Corporation, 2006. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Complete Poems of Jonathan Swift. Pat Rogers, ed. Penguin Books, 1983. The Faber Book of 20th Century Women's Poetry. Fleur Adcock, ed. Faber and Faber, 1987. The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse. Thomas Kinsella, ed. Oxford University Press, 1986. The Oxford Book of Satirical Verse. Geoffrey Grigson, ed. Oxford University Press, 1980. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.