SWIFT, JONATHAN. - Irish writer, b. in Dublin on 30 Nov. 1667, d. there on 19 Oct. 1745.
Although he had received orders in the Anglican Church, he was nevertheless averse to all the historical forms of Christianity. In his satirical poem The Tale of a Tub, in fact, Peter (the Catholic Church), Martin (the Protestant), and Jack (the Calvinist) are violently attacked. In The Battle of the Books he makes his own contribution to the famous querelle over the supremacy of the ancients or the moderns. But his masterpiece is Gulliver's Travels (1727), a satire that, for its universal pessimism about the fate of men and its bitter philosophy concerning fundamental human wickedness, could be called Leopardian, setting aside the Italian poet's lyrical gift. But by a caprice of fate and by virtue of the author's inventive fantasy, two of the four books that compose it, the Voyage to the Land of the Dwarfs and the Voyage to the Land of the Giants, have become a classic for children. S. is of interest for the singular acumen of his satire, which makes him the champion of the English Enlightenment, and for the extreme lucidity of his language, but he repels for his virulence and ferocity, even if he never exhausts himself in personal polemic. The other aspect of this complex figure is represented by his sentimental correspondences with Esther Johnson contained in the Journal to Stella (1710-13) and by the poem Cadenus and Vanessa (Cadenus stands for Decanus), dedicated to another woman, written in 1713 and published after her death, in 1723. This biographical part has aroused great interest among modern scholars of S. The great eighteenth-century critic Samuel Johnson did not conceal his antipathy for the writer. S. died half-mad in Dublin.
Bibliography3 works
Augusto Guidi