Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel
Title | Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel PDF eBook |
Author | John Stubbs |
Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company |
Pages | 840 |
Release | 2017-02-28 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 0393634159 |
A rich and riveting portrait of the man behind Gulliver’s Travels, by a “vivid, ardent, and engaging” (New York Times Book Review) author. One of Europe’s most important literary figures, Jonathan Swift was also an inspired humorist, a beloved companion, and a conscientious Anglican minister—as well as a hoaxer and a teller of tales. His anger against abuses of power would produce the most famous satires of the English language: Gulliver’s Travels as well as the Drapier Papers and the unparalleled Modest Proposal, in which he imagined the poor of Ireland farming their infants for the tables of wealthy colonists. John Stubbs’s biography captures the dirt and beauty of a world that Swift both scorned and sought to amend. It follows Swift through his many battles, for and against authority, and in his many contradictions, as a priest who sought to uphold the dogma of his church; as a man who was quite prepared to defy convention, not least in his unshakable attachment to an unmarried woman, his “Stella”; and as a writer whose vision showed that no single creed holds all the answers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, in Jonathan Swift Stubbs has found the perfect subject for this masterfully told biography of a reluctant rebel—a voice of withering disenchantment unrivaled in English.
Jonathan Swift
Title | Jonathan Swift PDF eBook |
Author | Leo Damrosch |
Publisher | Yale University Press |
Pages | 587 |
Release | 2013-11-12 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 0300164998 |
Draws on discoveries made in the past three decades to paint a new portrait of the satirist, speculating on his parentage, love life, and relationships while claiming that the public image he projected was intentionally misleading.
Jonathan Swift
Title | Jonathan Swift PDF eBook |
Author | Eugene Hammond |
Publisher | Rowman & Littlefield |
Pages | 841 |
Release | 2016-04-04 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 1611496101 |
Jonathan Swift: Our Dean (along with its companion, Jonathan Swift: Irish Blow-in) aspires to be the most accurate and engaging critical biography of Jonathan Swift ever. It builds on the thorough research of Irvin Ehrenpreis’s highly regarded 1962–1983 three-volume biography, but re-interprets Swift’s life and works by re-assessing his 1714–1720 repudiating the pretender while remaining friends with many who did not, by acknowledging that he likely had a physical affair with Esther Vanhomrigh between 1719 and 1723, by questioning whether in any sense he was a misanthrope, by noting his real care for Esther Johnson in her final illness, and by emphasizing the mutual love between Swift and his caretakers during his final difficult years.
Jonathan Swift and Philosophy
Title | Jonathan Swift and Philosophy PDF eBook |
Author | Janelle Pötzsch |
Publisher | Lexington Books |
Pages | 274 |
Release | 2016-12-07 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1498521541 |
Jonathan Swift and Philosophy is the first book to analyse and interpret Swift’s writing from a philosophical angle. By placing key texts of Swift in their philosophical and cultural contexts and providing background to their history of ideas, it demonstrates how well informed Swift’s criticism of the politics, philosophy, and science of his age actually was. Moreover, it also sets straight preconceptions about Swift as ignorant about the scientific developments of his time. The authors offer insights into, and interpretations of, Swift’s political philosophy, ethics, and his philosophy of science and demonstrate how versatile a writer and thinker Swift actually was. This book will be of interest to scholars of philosophy, history of ideas, and 18th century literature and culture.
Jonathan Swift and the Eighteenth-Century Book
Title | Jonathan Swift and the Eighteenth-Century Book PDF eBook |
Author | Paddy Bullard |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 309 |
Release | 2013-07-18 |
Genre | Design |
ISBN | 1107016266 |
An account of Swift's dealings with books and texts, showing how the business of print was transformed during his lifetime.
The Strange Case of Jonathan Swift and the Real Long John Silver
Title | The Strange Case of Jonathan Swift and the Real Long John Silver PDF eBook |
Author | Robert A. Prather |
Publisher | |
Pages | 0 |
Release | 2007 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 9780979880216 |
This book investigates the mystery and legend of Jonathan Swift of Alexandria, Virginia, a merchant with legendary silver mines, and the probable connection between the Swift silver mine legend and Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.
Jonathan Swift and the Vested Word
Title | Jonathan Swift and the Vested Word PDF eBook |
Author | Deborah Baker Wyrick |
Publisher | UNC Press Books |
Pages | 278 |
Release | 1988 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 9780807817803 |
In Jonathan Swift and the Vested Word, Deborah Wyrick argues that modern Continental and American literary theory is "tantalizingly applicable to Swiftian texts." Its applicability, she writes, "stems from Swift's interest in and exploration of what are now though of as phenomenological, structuralist, poststructuralist, and new historicist concerns: how a life in language comes into being, how semiotic systems determine meaning, how texts open up their own systems to other texts and to multiple interpretations." Wyrick investigates Swift's confrontations with three theories of language current in his day, theories that locate meaning in the thing named, in the idea behind the word, or in the response of the audience. She concludes that Swift fashioned a fourth theory of meaning, one that locates meaning in and among words themselves. Because of his fear of the anarchic potential of language, Swift attempted to invest his words with extratextual authority; yet a powerful counterforce was his desire to exploit the possibilities of language divested of stable significance. These divestitures, particularly the word-play and language games, ultimately served serious personal and social purposes. A crucial personal purpose was Swift's ability to create a textual self, which he did, Wyrick maintains, by constructing defensive transvestitures centered on clothes and money. These parallel sign systems produced Swift's greatest achievement in using the resources of language and history to effect political action. By using the entire Swift canon -- poems and prose narratives, letters and essays, sermons and satires -- Wyrick presents Swift's struggle with the inadequacies of language and its inability to answer the tremendous demands he made upon it. Originally published 1988. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.