UNIT 1 JONATHAN SWIFT WORKS LIFE AND Structure 1.0 Objective: 1.1 Introduction 1.2. Swift’s Background 1.2.1 AWhig ora ‘Tory 1.22 A Tale ofa Tub and Swift's Disenchantment with his English Lineage 1.23 The Battle of the Books and 1.3. On the Irish Language classicism 1.4 Satire in the Classical and the Neoclassical Age 14.1 Horace, Juvenal, and Swift 1.42 Swift and “savage indignation” 1.43. Definitions of Satire in the Neoclassical Age 1.5 Gulliver's Travels and Other Works 1.5.1 Swift's Ambivalent Attitude towards Ireland 1.5.2 Publication and Secrecy 1.5.3 AModest or a Monstrous Proposal 1.54 Vietory forthe Irish Patriots and the Drapier 1.6 A Misanthrope or a Philanthropist 1.7 Let Us Sum Up 1.8 Questions 1.0 OBJECTIVES Satire is a sort of glass, wher face but their own, in beholders do generally discover everybody's (Jonathan Swift, The Battle of the Books) This unit aims to provide a biographical account of Jonathan Swift and discuss his significant works at length. It proposes to analyse his Anglo-Irish identity and its implications on his writings and political affiliation, We will examine terms like Whig, Tory, satire, and neoclassicism closely, to comprehend the age in which Swift wrote. We will also look at the similarities between Swift and the Roman satirist Juvenal (55 ADE- 2" Century ADE), for indignation is at the heart of their writings. The unit will seek to answer the question as to why Swift concealed his true identity and chose different pseudonyms while writing his satires. A critical examination of his satires, including Gulliver s Travels, A Modest Proposal, and others, would enable us to understand Swift’s trenchant critique of English colonialism, It will also help us analyse Swift’s ambivalent feelings towards Ireland. We will attempt to answer how an Englishman began to be perceived as an Irish patriot. The last section of this unit questions Swift’s identity as a mad misanthrope and foregrounds his philanthropic natur 1.1._ INTRODUCTION Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), an Anglo-Irish author, is primarily remembered 51Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels 52 for his political satire Gulliver's Travels (1726), which is also read as a child fable in abridged form. He was a posthumous child, born of English parents in Dublin, where he was educated at Trinity College. He constantly moved between England and Ireland during his formative years and eventually became Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, in 1713. Thereafter, he settled down in Ireland forever. In 1660, the Restoration brought an end to the Puritan rule that had succeeded the English civil war of the 1640s and the 1650s, (that we know of from Block 2 of BEGC 107). Shortly afterwards, a large number of Protestant English men and women were encouraged to settle in Ireland, where they were awarded land that used to be owned by the Catholics. Swift’s parents and uncles became the beneficiaries of this scheme when they decided to try their fortune in Ireland (Damrosch, Ch. 1). But Swift always adored London. “The best and greatest part of my life”, Swift wrote to his friend John Gay from Dublin in a letter dated January 1722, “L spent in England; there I made my friendships, and there I left my desires.” He lamented further, “I am condemned forever to another country.” While living in London, he made friends with Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, and formed the Scriblerus Club with them, Subsequently, he became a propagandist for the Tory administration. Despite his desire to live in England, Swift had to overcome his ambition and spend most of his life as a dean in Dublin. He regarded his return to Ireland as an exile but eventually wrote for the Irish cause. As a political satirist, poet, pamphleteer, and member of the English settlement in Ireland, he opposed British colonialism. He challenged the policies of the English government in Ireland and became a trenchant critique of the atrocities of the British perpetrated against the Anglo - Irish population. Consequently, he was celebrated as an Irish patriot. Swift himself was painfully aware of his double identity as an Anglo-Irish. He reveals in the Drapier's Letters (1724) that “he both is and is not Irish, both. is and is not English” (Oakleaf, 29), His life was characterised by a number of paradoxes and mixed loyalties. Despite his divided allegiance, he has appealed to the successive generation of writers and political thinkers for his ability to oppose colonialism and the dehumanising side of colonial modernity. W B Yeats, George Orwell, Mahatma Gandhi, and Edward Said found in Swift's writings, an incisive critique of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, political absolutism and condemnation of modern civilisation. Let us know look at Swift's background. 1.2. SWIFT’S BACKGROUND One of the most significant features of 18 century England was the constant conflict between several religious and political denominations. Society was politically divided between the Whigs and the Tories, liberals and conservatives, sympathisers of the parliament and those of the king. Similarly, on religious grounds, there were sharp divisions between Catholicism and Protestantism, between Puritanism and Catholicism, and the Anglican Church and the dissenters. Inthe English Civil War and the years following the war, which saw the restoration of Charles II in 1660, the Whigs supported the cause of the Parliament whereas, the Tories extended their support to the monarch and the aristocrats, When Robert Walpole, a Whig, became the first Prime Minister of England in 1721, the power of the Tories began to decline. Poets, priests, and politicians often shifted their political allegiance to seek favour from the ruling party and to evade state censorship. We need to situate Swift’s life and works in this political and religious context to comprehend the factious age that shaped him.1.2.1 A Whig or a Tory “Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory”, wrote the neoclassical poet Alexander Pope in his translation of the first satire of the Roman poet Horace (about whom. we studied in BEGC 102). Swift, too, began his career as a Whig and later became a Tory. He found a political mentor in Sir William Temple, a retired Whig diplomat, who hired Swift as a secretary. He worked as Temple’s amanuensis and read aloud his letters in Latin and English. Upon Temple's death, Swift defended Whig Lords impeached by the House of Commons in 4 Discourse of the Contests and Dissentions between the Nobles and the Commons in Athens and Rome (1701). Shortly afterwards, he dedicated his prose satire A Tale of a Tub (1704) to Baron Somers, an influential member of the Whig Party. Let’s see what A Tale of a Tub is about next. 1.2.2 A Tale of a Tub and Swift’s Disenchantment with his English Lineage A Tale of a Tub tells the story of three brothers ~ Peter, Jack, and Martin — who represent Roman Catholicism, Calvinistic dissent, and Anglicanism, respectively. The narrative is characterised by parody, gaps, subversions and long digressions on hack writers, madness, and on ancient and modem literature. The book is perceived as an “effervescent attack on Catholic additions to, and Protestant detractions from", the fundamental tenets of the Christian Church. The basic doctrines of the Church are represented in the form of a coat, which the brothers inherit and alter according to their whims (Sanders, 281). As the story constantly oscillates between the main plot and long digressions, it can be seen as a precursor to anovel like Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1759). Sterne’s protagonist and the narrator, Tristram, too, constantly digress and the plot barely moves. Swift had written this allegory to please Queen Anne and to seek her favour. But to his utmost surprise, the satirical representation of the English Church infuriated the queen so much that his chances to rise within the English Church ended forever. This could have happened because of the character Martin, a representative of the Church of England, who gambles, and whores like his brothers, and which the queen may have found objectionable. This incident left Swift utterly disenchanted with his English lineage, as he wanted to be the bishop of an English church, Much later, Swift humorously fictionalised this episode in Gulliver's Travels, where he briefly recast himself as Gulliver and the British queen as the queen of the imaginary island Lilliput. As Swift’s allegory had scandalised the queen, so his fictional creation Gulliver had to face the wrath of the queen of Lilliput for extinguishing the palace fire by urinating on it. After dousing the flames, Gulliver expects some reward from the queen for this commendable job. But later he gets to know that the queen refuses to stay in the defiled palace and he is faced with impeachment. There are parallels between the disenchantment of Swift with Queen Anne and the disillusionment of Gulliver with the queen of Lilliput. His other early work The Battle of the Books will be examined next. 1.2.3 The Battle of the Books and Neoclassicism The Battle of the Books or An Account of a Battle between the Ancient and Modern Books in St, James's Library is a short satire published along with 4 Tale of a Tub. The allegorical squib was a tribute to his Whig patron William Temple, who defended classical literature against contemporary vernacular literature. In the various salons and academies of Europe, the question of superiority of the ancient vvis the modem was widely debated. In France, scholars who were trying to firee science from ancient Greece and Rome championed the modern over the vis Jonathan Swift: Life and Works 53Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels 54 ancient, Charles Perrault, known for his collection of fairy tales, claimed that the French poet Boileau was better than the ancient poet Horace and the French playwright Corneille greater than the Greck playwright Sophocles (Damrosch, ch), As a neoclassical author, Swift overruled this model. He rejected the notion that the accomplishments of modem authors rivalled those of the ancient world. For him, classical Greek and Roman models of literary excellence were sacrosanct and could not be surpassed. Let us begin by trying to understand what ism means. neoclassi ‘The term neoclassical literature refers to the works of authors such as Alexander Pope, John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison, Samuel Johnson, and some others who wrote in the late 17 and early 18® centuries. These authors shared certain common traits. They had great respect for the writers of ancient Greece and Rome. Classical works provided models of excellence and imitation, for they had survived the test of time. Poetry for the neoclassical poets was to be an imitation of human life and nature. It was characterised by reason, restraint, decorum, and moderation. Great literature was to provide both instruction and pleasure to the readers. The neoclassical authors were inspired by the ancient Latin poet, Horace, who in his work Ars Poetica, that is, The Art of Poetry, wrote that the aim of poetry was to entertain and to instruct. Neoclassical art, therefore, ‘was not guided by the maxim, ‘art for art’s sake’ but by a newer maxim, ‘art for the sake of humanity’, Since there was an emphasis on instruction and reform as the objectives of literature and art forms, the genre of satire both in prose as. well as verse became popular. Pope pioneered the genre of verse satire whereas Swift was the master of prose satire, In the allegory The Battle of the Books, Swift uses characters, including Aristotle, Virgil, Aesop, Bacon, and Descartes from both the ancient and contemporary times in a humorous fashion to capture the conflict between the ancient and the modem. In the book, Aristotle shoots an arrow at Bacon but hits Descartes inadvertently, The ancient poet Virgil encounters his modern translator Dryden in a mock-heroic fashion. After the fiasco of A Tale of a Tub, Swift became the chief propagandist for a Tory Ministry headed by Robert Harley, who had himself begun his career as a Whig and later became a Tory (Oakleaf, 2). Swift also wrote for the Tory journal The Examiner, Harley, a great reader and collector of manuscripts, appreciated Swift’s charm and wit, and liked to call him Martin, a character in The Tale of a Tub. Despite this friendship, Harley could not persuade the Queen to change her mind and appoint Swift a Bishop. Only the queen could appoint Bishops whereas, other influential people had the right to appoint Deans. A Dean is a priest who is in charge of the daily affairs of the cathedral whereas the Bishop is the head of the diocese as a whole. Swift eventually gave up on becoming a bishop after having waited patiently for years and accepted the post of Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral at Dublin, an office he held for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, Queen Anne was happy to get rid of Swift. This marked the beginning of a new chapter in Swift’s life, as he gradually began to enjoy the administrative and religious responsibilities of a Dean in Ireland. It appears that he liked his new title, for in his poems he refers to himself as “the Dean” over 170 times (Damrosch, Ch. 18). Let’s now look at his life in Ireland next. 1.3 ON THE IRISH LANGUAGE In Ireland, he continued to be torn apart between his English lineage and the Irish cause, between the English language and the local Irish tongue. He was noadmirer of the Irish tongue and thought that it trapped its speakers “in a cultural ghetto”, He called it “barbarous” and was critical of “its abominable sounds”. He believed that the native language did more than anything else to “prevent the Irish from being tamed.” Surprisingly, like a true Englishman, he talked about “civilizing” the Irish in much the same way that the English would talk about its subjects in colonial India. As an English citizen and defender of the English language, he emphasised that the Irish language should be abolished, and English should be made compulsory on every occasion of business in shops, markets, fairs and other places of dealing. (Damrosch, Ch.18). However, known for writing polemical satires, he defended the Anglo-Irish Protestants of Ireland against the atrocities of the English Whigs, especially in the Drapier's Letters (1724), Gulliver's Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729). We said that Swift was a satirist, let us now examine satire as a genre — both in the classical age as well as in the neoclassical age in the next section. 1.4 SATIRE IN THE CLASSICAL AND THE NEOCLASSICAL AGE Asatire according to Literary Devices: Definition and Examples of Literary Terms, is “a literary device for the artful ridicule of a folly or vice as a means of exposing or correcting it, The subject of satire is generally human frailty, as it manifests in people’s behaviour or ideas as well as societal institutions or other creations. Satire utilises tones of amusement, contempt, scorn, or indignation towards a flawed subject with the hope of creating awareness and subsequent change”. Lit Charts describes a satire as making use any of the following tactics such as, “humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticise something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of satire, but satirists can take aim at other targets as well—from societal conventions to government policies. Satire is an entertaining form of social commentary, and it occurs in many forms: there are satirical novels, poems, and essays, as well as satirical films, shows, and cartoons. Satire is a bit unusual as a literary term because it can be used to describe both a literary device and the specific genre of literature that makes use of the device. Just like a comedy is comedic because it uses comedy, a satire is satirical because it uses satire”. This is basically to refresh your memory on satire as a literary genre, as we have already studied this genre earlier (BEGC 102, Block 4). Let us continue with our discussion on the ancient satirists and the neoclassicists who used the satire. 1.4.1 Horace, Juvenal, and S: One of the ways to analyse the continuity and discontinuity between the classical and the neoclassical age is through literary forms and genres. The poets and authors of this age borrowed the genre of the satire and the epistle from the ancient Greco-Roman world and used them widely to articulate their concems. Although one may find some precedents for satire in ancient Greece, the genre of satire, strictly speaking, is of Roman origin (again, recall what we studied in BEGC 102, Block 4). Lucilius (148 BCE-103 BCE) is proclaimed as the founder of Roman satire. Apart from Lucilius, Persius (34 ADE-62 ADE), and Quintilian (35 ADE- 100ADE) were some of the prominent satirists in ancient Rome. But Horace (65 BCE- 8 BCE) and Juvenal (50 ADE-2" century ADE) brought perfection to the genre of satire in Rome. To acknowledge their contribution to satire, English satire is classified into two parts: the Horatian satire and the Juvenalian satire, The former is characterised by playfulness whereas the latter Jonathan Swift Life and Works 5SJonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels 56 by resentment. In the Horatian satire, the narrator isa city-dweller, who writes for the sake of amusement at the sight of human folly and pretentiousness. Horace, a contemporary of the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar, celebrates the new pax romana — Roman peace — established by the emperor after years of civil war. He gained the patronage of Gaius Maecenas (70 BC- 8 BC), a close friend and ally of the emperor. Maecenas gave Horace the Sabine farm, where he led a carefree life and wrote witty and urban satires. Unlike Horace, Juvenal could not gain the support of a powerful patron, His biting satires, therefore, lack his predecessor's witticism and are known for indignation and denunciation of Rome. While Pope in his satires oscillates between the Horatian and the Juvenalian model, Swift is closer to Juvenal, Both Juvenal and Swift remained on the margins of society. They both lacked an influential patron and hence, anger became the central force of the bleak world that they represent. 1.4.2 Swift and “savage indignation” Acommon trope in Juvenal and Swift is indignation. In Satire I, Juvenal writes that it has become impossible to live in the monstrous city of Rome. Given the decadence of the city, it is hard not to write satire. He argues further that though it is against nature to be angry, yet indignatio (indignation) constitutes his verses (uvenal, 9). In Satire IIL, the narrator Umbricius is so upset with the corrupt ways of city life that he decides to leave Rome and sets off for the countryside at Cumae. The satire inspired Samuel Johnson so much that he modelled his poem “London” after Juvenal’s Satire Il. Juvenal decides not to remain silent and to speak against the corruption of Rome. What Rome was to Juvenal, London was to Swift. The Latin satirist excoriates the moral depravity of Rome indignantly whereas, Swift satirises London. Swift, toa great extent, surpasses even Juvenal For Juvenal, Rome is the object of satire but for Swit, the object of satire in Gulliver's Travels is not England alone but entire humanity. Swift uses the Latin word indignatio in his epitaph that he composed for himself in Latin. The Irish poet W B Yeats (1865-1939), translated this epitaph later into English, Yeats’s translation uses the word “savage indignation” in the opening stanza of the poem: “Swift has sailed into his rest;/Savage indignation there Cannot lacerate his Breast.” The Irish Dean knew that there was no escape from indignation as long as he lived. Only death could put an end to his anger. The satirist was incensed and aghast at a society that had lost its moral purpose. The reason behind this anger was to reform a decadent society through satire. 1.4.3 Definitions of Satire “The true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction. And he who writes honestly is no more an enemy to the offender, than the physician to the patient, when he prescribes harsh remedies to an inveterate disease”, wrote John Dryden (1631-1700) in the preface to his verse satire Absalom and Achitophel (1681). As a physician treats an individual, a satirist cures the society of its illness. Similarly, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) defines satire in his Dictionary (1755) as a “poem in which wickedness or folly is censured.” Like Dryden and Johnson, amendment was central to Swift's project of writing satires, “I wrote for their amendment, and not their approbation”, maintained Swift in Gulliver's Travels, while discussing the objective behind writing this book. To achieve the goal of amending the ills of society, the Anglo-Irish priest did not shy away from either displeasing the high and the mighty or expressing his antagonism against the entire human race. He is often called a misanthrope owing to his lacerating satires and resentment against the species of man, mainly in Gulliver s Travels, the Neocla: ical AgeBook IV, where Gulliver concludes that horses are superior to men. Without much further ado, let us begin looking at his Gulliver 5 Travels and some of his other important works in the next section. 1.5 |_| GULLIVER’S TRAVELS AND OTHER WORKS As mentioned earlier in section 1.1 and 1.3, Swift had a very ambivalent relationship with Ireland, Remember he was an Englishman now appointed as a Dean in Dublin, Ireland. 1.5.1 Swift's Ambivalent Attitude towards Ireland Inhis pamphlets and satires, Swift foregrounds the political and economic wrongs of Ireland under British rule. However, he defended only the interests of English settlers and neglected the natives, who he despised. The despicable creatures called Yahoos in Gulliver's Travels can be seen as a fictional representation of these natives. Its ironical that despite his condemnation of the Irish language and the local people, later he was hailed as an Irish patriot and appropriated as a symbol of Irish nationalism. Nevertheless, writing from the perspective of a white settler, he produced a trenchant critique of English colonialism in Gulliver's Travels. 1.5.2 Publication and Secrecy The story behind the publication of Gulliver s Travels is as intriguing as the text itself. The original title of the book was Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. Ttwas ostensibly written by Lemuel Gulliver, “first a SURGEON, and then a CAPTAIN of several SHIPS”. The name Gulliver s Travels by which the book is universally known now is a shortened version. Swift's name was nowhere mentioned as the author of this polemical satire. It was a deliberate ploy on the part of the satirist to conceal his name. Jonathan Swift loved secrecy, disguise, and mystery. Most of his satirical writings were first published anonymously or pseudonymously. He preferred to write under assumed names: Isaac Bickerstaff, Drapier, and Lemuel Gulliver. “Sometimes the last thing that an anonymous author wants is to remain unidentified”, wrote John Mullan in his book Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature (2008). Swift meticulously planned its publication to keep its authorship hidden. He got the text transcribed in another man’s handwriting and arranged for the sample to be dropped secretly by an intermediary at a publisher's house. The manuscript was accompanied by a letter purporting to be from Lemuel Gulliver’s cousin, one “Richard Sympson”. The entire book was offered to the publisher for publication in return for £200, Swift had originally written this letter but his friend John Gay had copied it to conceal the identity of his friend. The publisher Benjamin Motte accepted the mysterious offer. Shortly afterwards, Pope, Swift’s close friend and probably co-conspirator, discussed the book with the mystified publisher and pretended to be equally puzzled. The author, in the meanwhile, had returned quietly to Dublin to resume his duties as a dean (Mullan, 9). Gulliver's Travels, written in the form of a quasi-travelogue, tells the story of Lamuel Gulliver, an English surgeon who rises to become a ship’s captain, Each time Gulliver embarks on a new journey, his ship is wrecked, and he is left stranded on a new island, Although he is the lone survivor of the shipwreck, fortunately, he returns home safely each time. It became immensely popular immediately upon its publication and readers attempted to attribute its authorship to varied figures. Mullan reflects on the popularity of the book and speculation of readers: Jonathan Swift Life and Works 37Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels 58 His satire had managed to be, as Gay said, ‘the conversation of the whole town'~ by which he meant the fashionable, the clever and the powerful. It was written to cause a fuss, to be talked about. In its early life, Gulliver's Travels was, above all, a topic of conversation, and some ofthis conversation was concerned with its authorship. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, writing to her sister in November 1726, guessed, both shrewdly and inaccurately, at the company that had produced this work, which ‘all our people of taste run mad about’. It was, she supposed, jointly composed by ‘a dignify'd clergyman, an Eminent Physician, and the first poet of the Age’ (13). The clergyman, physician, and the first poet of the age, referred to Swift, Arbuthnot, and Pope, respectively. These speculations became a source of pleasure for the author. There could be several reasons behind concealing one’s true identity for a satirist in the 18 century England, including self-promotion, mischievousness, and evasion of state censorship. The persecution of authors, printers, and publishers was quite common in England during the 17* and 18* centuries, especially after the Restoration of 1660. In February 1663, the London printer John Twyn was convicted of treason, He awaited execution in Newgate Prison. The printer was to be hanged, drawn and quartered after the execution. He was to die in prolonged agony as a terrifying lesson to onlookers. Twyn was accused of printing an anonymous pamphlet titled A Treatise of the Execution of Justice. The pamphlet justified the people’s right to rebellion and described the king as accountable to his subjects. The content was judged as seditious. There was no evidence to suggest that John Twyn was the author. He had only turned it from manuscript to print. Despite knowing that by confessing his crime and revealing the name of the author, he could save his life, Twyn refused to betray the pamphleteer. (Mullan, 138) Tn this volatile political context, when the memory of the execution of his father- Charles I was still fresh in the mind of the new king, the job of a satirist was fraught with dangers. It was not for nothing, then, that Swift chose to write with different pseudonyms. Mullan contends that Alexander Pope often used anonymity to provoke the readers whereas his friend “Jonathan Swift did sometimes wish to protect himself, if not from the guesses of readers, then at least from prosecution” (168). Book I of Gulliver s Travels is an attack on England, on the dominant Whig Party, in particular on the powerful Whig minister Robert Walpole. The use of Gulliver as the purported author of satire would have worked as a safety valve for Swift had he invited the wrath of the powerful sections of English society. 1.5.3. A Modest or a Monstrous Proposal Another satire where he masks his true identity in defence of Trish interests is A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of poor people in Ireland, from being a Burden to their parents or Country; and for making them beneficial to the Public. Although the long title is self-explanatory, Swift is known as the master of irony. There is usually a gap between what he intends to convey and what he literally coveys. The readers of Swift, therefore, cannot afford to remain passive while reading his text. They need to be active participants in the act of reading and read between the lines to detect the irony, to avoid misreading him. Itis dangerous, therefore, to make an assertion, a claim about his intention, for whatever a reader or literary critic contends about Swift may easily be rejected by another counter-claim, Nothing on earth could be as immodest as the proposal that, Swift calls modest. He suggests a monstrous proposal for the human consumptionof the surplus infant population of Ireland by the Irish and English gentry. The narrator laments the presence of the Irish poor and their children, and then comes up with the outrageous proposal: I shall now therefore humbly propose my own Thoughts; which I hope will not be liable to the least Objection. Ihave been assured by a very knowing American of my Acquaintance in London; that a young healthy Child, well nursed, is, at a Year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome Food; whether Stewed, Roasted, Baked, or Boiled; and, I make no doubt, that it will equally serve in a Fricasie, or a Ragoust. (A Modest Proposal, 4) The author of this appalling proposal could not be initially traced, Claiming to be a well-wisher of the world, the narrator proposes to solve the issues of overpopulation, poverty and food scarcity in Ireland by advising the Irish to eat their babies. In an ironic vein, he not only comes up with the proposal of cannibalism but also confidently maintains that the horrendous idea will be met with the least resistance, The strength of this satire lies in its ability to draw the attention of readers to the evils of English colonialism. The narrator seems to argue that since the colonial masters have already consumed all the resources of Ireland, why don’t they eat their babies too? The pamphlet impels us to think of colonialism and cannibalism simultaneously. 1.5.4 Victory for the Irish Patriots and the Drapier Swift's the Drapier + Letters, written before Gulliver + Travels, had earlier caused the same public and popular outrage at British indifference to Ireland. Published under the pseudonym M B, the letters attack the English Whig government over giving patent to William Wood, an Englishman, through corrupt means to mint copper coins for Ireland. Swift and some of the Irish believed that the coins to be minted were going to be of an inferior quality, and that it would have had a devastating impact on the already fragile economy of Ireland, where hunger was common and famine frequent, Here, Swift, disguised as a Drapier, becomes the voice of resistance to the oppression by the English community in Ireland, He argues that the people of Ireland are born free, as free as the people of England (Oakleaf, 174). As an outcome of public uproar, Wood had to surrender his patent. It was a victory for the Irish patriots and the Drapier who had spoken for them, Despite his ambivalence to the Irish people and their cause, he began to be seen as an Irish patriot, who took up the cause of the Irish against the English misrule, gradually. Writing satires has always been a perilous profession. It was a risky affair to expose the corruption of the powerful Whigs but Swift never shied away from giving a voice to the oppressed and the marginalised. Years later, in 1739, he did his own assessment in a self-reflective poem titled “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift”. He wrote: Fair liberty was all his cr) For her he stood prepared to die; For her he boldly stood alone; For her he oft exposed his own In Swift, on the one hand, we see an Englishman who condemns the Irish language and talks about its abolishment and replacement by English. And, on the other, wwe see an Anglo-Irish patriot who excoriates the English colonial administration for its economic and political wrongs done against Irland. These contradictions and inconsistencies pose a challenge to his readers and literary historians. Jonathan Swift Life and Works 59Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels 60 Nevertheless, in his later years, he seems to be fascinated with the idea of liberty. He claims to have exposed “his own”, that is, Englishmen for the sake of liberty. As a neo-classicist, he chose the genre of satire to denounce his opponents and expose the corruption of the English, Since Swift always remained on the margins of society as a Tory, an Anglo-Irish, and as a Dean of an Irish church, his satires are characterised by resentment towards society. “Savage indignation” lies at the heart of his prose satires where he highlights the essential depravity of human beings. We examined Swift as a satirist and also said that many thought he was a misanthrope, but what or who is a misanthrope? Simply put a misanthrope is someone who in a sense hates/ detests humans/ mankind. But before using terms such as this, we need to know what it means and what it entails. If we are to call Swift a misanthrope, we would be suggesting that he hated humans whereas, that is not really true. He merely disliked/ detested/ hated the manner in which corrupt people were destroying society for their own gains. Let us discuss whether Swift can be called a misanthrope or a philanthropist next. 1.6 _AMISANTHROPE OR A PHILANTHROPIST Swift has been considered a mad misanthrope for his universal denunciation of mankind for years. Nevertheless, it would be unjust to judge a satirist so harshly, who devoted his life to expose the faults and hypocrisies of his times. It is a debatable question, however, whether he was a misanthrope or philanthropist. He could predict what his friends and foes would say about his death. He toyed with this idea and wrote “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift”, where the poet, like an objective observer, tries to foresee what others would say about him. Towards the concluding section of the poem he writes: He knew an hundred pleasant stories, With all the turns of Whigs and Tories; Was cheerful to his dying day, And friends would let him have his way. He gave the little wealth he had To build a house for fools and mad, And showed by one satiric touc No nation wanted it so much. The poet celebrates himself as a storyteller, But this celebration is accompanied by the painful realisation that both the Whigs and the Tories would be cheerful to hear the news of his death, for no nation loves satires and satirists. The poem, published in 1739, also highlights Swit’s philanthropic gesture towards that segment of society, which everyone despises and no one cares about. But he cares for the downtrodden, even for the fools and the madmen, and plans to give away the little wealth he has accumulated for their welfare. ‘Towards the end of his life, Swifl was struck by senile disorders. In 1742, he was declared of unsound mind and memory —symptoms, perhaps of dementia. At the age of seventy-seven in 1745, Jonathan Swift died and was buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral next to Stella, his erstwhile student, lifelong friend, and rumoured wife. 1.7 __LET US SUM UP ‘Thus, this unit has discussed at length Jonathan Swit’s eventful life and his major works. We have seen the historical circumstances in which Swift’s parents migrated from England to Ireland and became a part of the Anglo-Protestant community there. Although he always aspired to be the Bishop of a church in England, thepublication of A Tale ofa Tub, ruined his prospects forever. Eventually, he decided to accept the offer of becoming a Dean in Ireland, The unit also shows how his views on Irland were characterised by ambivalence. He stood up against the exploitation of Ireland by the English colonial administration and became a hero to the Irish, But he denounced Irish as the language of barbarians. Despite his English lineage, in the Irish cultural imagination, Jonathan Swift is celebrated as a patriot. He chose the medium of satire to articulate his grievances. The unit has explored the relationship between publication and secrecy in the production of satires. His biting satires are closer to those of the Latin satirist Juvenal. We have discussed terms like Whig and Tory, neoclassicism and satire. Although for a long time, Swift was called a mad misanthrope his poems suggest that he was a philanthropist, who chose to expose the hypocrisies of his age. 1.8 QUESTIONS 1. Critically examine Jonathan Swift’s ambivalent attitude towards Ireland, As an Anglo-Irish, how did he respond to English colonialism in Ireland? 2. Define the term neoclassicism with reference to the similarities between Swift and the Roman satirist Juvenal, 3. What were the fundamental differences between Whigs and Tories? Critically comment with reference to Swift’s proximity to the Tories. 4, Was Jonathan Swift a mad misanthrope or a philanthropist? Jonathan Swift Life and Works 61