Jonathan Swift Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) was a prolific eighteenth-century European satirist whose work took aim at many targets: the English government, the slave trade, the Whig party, and organized religion, just to name a prominent few. While his Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and A Modest Proposal (1729) stand as his most famous works, his output as a whole reveals a keen mind and biting wit, one that spared no ridicule on the follies of political life past and present. Choosing to remain anonymous during the publication of many of his polemics, Swift eventually came to enjoy worldwide familiarity and acclaim as one of the leading (and most humorous) political writers of his day.

Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland, to Abigail Erick, months after her husband Jonathan’s death. The details of Smith’s early childhood are somewhat obscure. At some point, he came under the guardianship of his uncle, who paid his way to Kilkenny College in Ireland. Swift eventually ended up graduating from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1686 and departed Ireland for England as a consequence of the turmoil of the Glorious Revolution (1688). In England, Swift reunited with his departed mother and worked in various diplomatic positions for the government. Along the way, he earned a master’s degree from Oxford and became a priest in the Church of Ireland. In 1704 he published The Battle of the Books and A Tale of the Tub. The political overtones to his early work were coincident with his involvement in English political life. A fierce critic of the Whig administration, Swift wrote and spoke out for Tory causes, temporarily earning him an informal advisory role when the latter party rose to power in 1710.

With the accession of George I to the throne in 1714, Swift left London for Ireland, where he penned a number of essays ridiculing the affluent and those indifferent to the plight of the poor. It was also at this time that Swift began perhaps his most famous work, Gulliver’s Travels. A parody of the political life of England that highlights the complexity of man’s nature, the book chronicles the escapades of Gulliver, an English wanderlust who accidentally voyages through four mysterious, often comical lands. First published in 1726, it was widely read and praised throughout Europe for its nuanced balance between fiction and reality. As the book was published anonymously due to its sensitive subject matter, Swift had to enjoy the commendation privately.

While Swift left his greatest mark on English literature, his contribution to political philosophy is not insignificant. While many of his writings engaged contemporary social injustices, he also addressed the divisions between ancient and modern thought, ridiculed the ancient Greek philosopher Plato’s faith in temporal happiness, and wrote skeptically of the human spirit’s fulfillment in modern science. To the end, he displayed a humor and inspiration in his writing that continues to resonate with the world as much as it did during his lifetime. He died following declining health on October 19, 1745, in Dublin.

Bibliography:

Fox, Christopher, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Lee, Jae Num. Swift and Scatological Satire. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1971.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. New York: Penguin, 2003.
A Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works. New York: Dover, 1996.

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