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Ⅱ. Literature of Satire: Jonathan Swift（1845-1912）
The Enlightenment stressed on
reason, order and discipline; however, the reality, which was full of vices,
follies, stupidities, and corruptions, violated it. Under such kind of
environment, satire, which refers to any writing in poetry, prose or novel,
appeared and became one of the typical features of this period’s writing.
The purpose of satire was to ridicule, censure and correct the evils in the
society, which answered well the purpose of the Enlightenment—education the
mass in moral, social as well as cultural life. Besides, satire was also an
effective weapon for all kinds of arguments and verbal attacks on enemies.
In this period, all best satires were wit in remark and skillful in
technique. Pope and Swift were the masters of satire, whose works are
considered to be the best and most representative of the age in satire.
Life
Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland on 30 November 1667, second child
and only son of Jonathan Swift and Abigail Erick Swift, and grandson of
Thomas Swift, the well-known royalist vicar of Goodrich, descended from a
Yorkshire family. He was also a cousin of Dryden. His father was dead before
he was born. Therefore, Swift’s education was arranged by other relatives.
In 1686, Jonathan Swift graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, and then
went to England to try his luck. He found a job as secretary to Sir William
Temple, and it was in Sir William’s household that he met Esther (Stella)
Johnson and became her tutor. Sir William was an extremely important
statesman of the day. He helped arrange the marriage of future British
monarchs William and Mary.
At this period, Swift wrote a number of papers between
tutoring sessions, but unfortunately burned most of it. The writing that
survives shows signs of the great satirist he was to become. But when Sir
William died in 1699, Jonathan was left scrambling for a job and eventually
ended up with several odd little Church positions back in Ireland and became
a very fashionable satiric writer among the Dublin society.
In 1701, he wrote his Discourse of the Contests and
Dissensions Between the Nobles and the Commons in Athens and Roman with
reference to the impeachment of the
Whig lords. Then in the course of
numerous visits to London he became acquainted with Addison, Steele,
Congreve, Halifax and other figures. In 1708, Swift, using the name Isaac
Bickerstaff, he composed a series of pamphlets in church questions with
ironic tone, such as Argument against Abolishing Christianity,
Letter Concerning the Sacramental Test. Between 1708 to 1709, under the
false name John Partridge, which had become famous, his Description of a
City Shower and Description of the Morning, and some poems
depicting scenes of London life were published in The Tatler. He
satisfied this false name a lot that he even wrote Partridge a nice little
epitaph:
“Here Five Foot deep lies on his back
A Cobler, Starmonger, and Quack,
Who to the Stars in pure Good-will,
Does to his best look upward still.”
In 1710, disgusted at the Whig’s alliance with Dissent,
he went to the Tories and attacked the Whig ministers in The Examiner
firmly. In 1713, he became dean of St. Patrick’s and continued his Journal
to Stella, a series of intimate letters（1710-13）, which gives a vivid
account of his daily life in London. The relationship between he and Stella
remained obscure, although they were intimate and affectionate. And Stella
died in 1728.
In 1726, he came to England to visit Pope and Gay, and
dined with Sir R. Walpole, to whom he addressed a letter of remonstrance on
the affairs of Ireland with no result. And his Gulliver’s Travels was
published in the same year, which was Swift’s first big try into prose.
Though it was often labeled as a children’s book, it was a great satire of
the times that far beyond most children. It shows Swift’s desire to
encourage people to read deeper and not take things for granted: readers who
paid attention could match all of Gulliver’s tall tales with current events
and long-term societal problems. In 1729, A Modest Proposal appeared
which was supposedly written by an intelligent and objective “political
arithmetician” who had carefully studied Ireland before making his proposal.
The author calmly suggests one solution for both the problem of
overpopulation and the growing numbers of undernourished people: breed those
children who would otherwise go hungry or be mistreated in order to feed the
general public.
Because of his fighting for the interest of the people—the
people of Ireland and the charities he devoted to, he was adored by the
people. But he never asked for the reward. For instance, two years before
his death, when he was told that the citizens of Dublin were going to
celebrate his birthday, Swift reportedly said, “It is all folly; they had
better leave it alone.”
The symptoms of the mental illness from which he suffered for
most of his life became very marked in his late years. On 19 October 1745,
finally this hard suffering ended at his aged 78. And his last will and
testament is to provide funds to establish somewhere around Dublin a
hospital for “idiots and lunatics” because “No Nation wanted [needed] it so
much.”
Swift wrote many pamphlets, journals, essays, etc. No matter
what he wrote, he can put light on it. The weapon he employed is: “put the
proper words in proper places, makes the true definition of a style.” Most
of his articles are written not for art but politics, however, because of
the fine artistic skills he employed, the political essays stand and keep on
its feet through the change of literary tides, just like the articles Lu Xu
wrote.
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