Jonathan Swift, Irish Author
Jonathan Swift (November 30, 1667 - October 19, 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric. He s remembered for works such as Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, Drapier's Letters, The Battle of the Books, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity and A Tale of a Tub. He is regarded, by some, to be the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry. He is also known for being a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles. Gulliver's Travels, a large portion of which Swift wrote at Woodbrook House in County Laois, was published in 1726. It is regarded as his masterpiece. Gulliver's Travels is an anatomy of human nature, a sardonic looking-glass, often criticised for its apparent misanthropy. It asks its readers to refute it, to deny that it has adequately characterised human nature and society. Each of the four books- recounting four voyages to mostly fictional exotic lands- has a different theme, but all are attempts to deflate human pride. Critics hail the work as a satiric reflection on the shortcomings of Enlightenment thought. He died in 1745, Swift, at the age of 79. The bulk of his fortune was left to found a hospital for the mentally ill, originally known as St Patrick's Hospital for Imbeciles, which opened in 1757, and which still exists as a psychiatric hospital.
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