Lecture IV: Swift, Gay, Pope and Johnson’s Age
The central moral paradox of the bourgeoisie: individualism (selfishness) vs. morality (selflessness)
- a perfect example of this dubious morality: Sir Robert Walpole, first Prime Minister of England (1721-42):
successful political system built on corruption (patronage)
- the best writers of the age were opposed to Walpole and to middle class morality: Pope, Swift, Gay – their great
satirical attacks on Walpole and on moral paradoxes of middle class ideology: Gulliver’s Travels (1726), The
Beggar’s Opera (1728), the Dunciad (1728)
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Family and Education
- born of English parents in Ireland (his father died seven months before his birth)
- Trinity College, Dublin (acquaintance of William Congreve), BA 1686
- before he could get his MA, they had to leave Ireland (1688)
1688-1704
- employed as secretary and personal assistant to Sir William Temple (a family acquaintance, a retired
Whig diplomat and a man of letters) at Moor Park
- met Esther Johnson (Stella; the daughter of Temple’s deceased steward), and participated in her education
- close but difficult relation with Temple; 1694: Swift was ordained as an Anglican parish priest and
appointed to a prebend in Northern Ireland
- 1696: back at Moor Park – stayed with Temple till his death (1699) editing and publishing Temple’s
memoires and correspondence
- 1704: published his own satires including The Battle of the Books and A Tale of a Tub
1704-1714
- frequent visits to England on behalf of the Church of Ireland
- allegiance with the Tories: pamphlets, editing the Examiner (1710-1713)
- literary friendships: Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, Parnell (the Scriblerus Club)
1714-1745
- 1714: death of Queen Anne, fall of the Tories – Swift made Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin
- fewer and fewer visits to England; he became an Irish patriot: The Drapier’s Letters (1724), A Modest
Proposal (1729)
- 1742 he suffered a stroke, declared ‘of unsound mind and memory’; died in 1745
His greatest literary achievement: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts, by Lemuel
Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships (1726)
Gulliver’s Travels
- connection to Robinson Crusoe: similar story, similar hero, similar presentation
- but obvious difference: the topic not suited to realistic presentation
- a parody of realistic fiction (mock-novel): the conventions, forms, techniques of realism set against an
emphatically unrealistic topic
- hero ironically distanced, ridiculed (Gulliver: a telling name)
- a typical technique of Swift’s: using a persona (cf. ‘A Modest Proposal’)
“Swift is literature's great ventriloquist, and we have come to recognize that understanding his works is
a matter of distinguishing the master's voice from those of his puppet personae.” David Nokes
- Gulliver as Swift’s persona: it is impossible to know what Swift’s position is
- travel, exotic, foreign environment is only a pretext for talking about the present day social reality of
England: a satire
Part I: Hanoverian England (the Emperor = George I; Flimnap = Robert Walpole; Skyres Bolgolam = the Earl of
Nottingham, etc.; High and Low heels = Tories and Whigs etc.)
Part II: Gulliver is little – represents the complacence, self-importance, narrow-mindedness, pride of the British
middle class man; some 17th century customs made fun of
Part III: Laputa and Barnibalby = England and Ireland; Academy of Lagado = Royal Academy
Part IV: general satire on man – the most difficult of the travels
- earned him the reputation of being a misanthrope
Dr Johnson: ‘a book written in open defiance of truth and regularity’
Swift’s character in the light of this prejudice: ‘the apostate politician, the ribald priest, the perjured lover, a
heart burning with hatred against the whole human race, a mind richly stored with images from the dunghill
and the lazar house.’ (Thomas B. Macaulay)
Swift in his letters to Pope: ‘I hate and detest that Animal called Man, although I heartily love John, Peter,
Thomas and so forth...’
‘I tell you after all that I do not hate mankind: it is vous autres [you others] who hate them, because you would
have them reasonable animals, and are angry for being disappointed.’
-
Gulliver’s denouncement of pride at the end of the Travels
John Gay (1685-1732)
- a friend of the Tory writers, a member of the Scriblerus Club
- the mock pastoral: The Shepherd’s Week (1714) – in response to the controversy between Ambrose
Philips and Alexander Pope
- mock georgic: Trivia, or The Art of Walking the Streets of London (1716)
- his greatest achievement: The Beggar’s Opera (1728)
The Beggar’s Opera (1728)
- occasion: Swift’s suggestion that Gay should write ‘a Newgate pastoral’
- theme: the Jonathan Wild scandal (1725)
- Peachum (Wild) paralleled with Robert Walpole: constant juxtaposition of high and low
Alexander Pope’s later career
1717: publication of his first collected book of verse
1715-26: translating Homer and editing Shakespeare’s work; criticized for these
1728: The Dunciad – his satirical response in mock heroic form (first in three books, a fourth book is added in
1742: The New Dunciad)
In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.
Religion blushing veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires.
Nor public Flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human Spark is left, nor Glimpse divine !
-
Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal Darkness buries All.
the appearance of mass popular culture
the commencement of a new era
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
-
son of a provincial bookseller; poverty
Johnson is forced to abandon Oxford without a degree
1735: marriage to a wealthy widow (20 years his senior)
He set up a school near Lichfield
-
1737: he and his pupil, David Garrick, go to London: hack work for The Gentleman’s Magazine; political
pamphlets (attacking Walpole and his administration); Parliamentary reports
Original work: ‘London’ (1738) an imitation of Juvenal’s satire on Rome
-
-
1747: Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language – much of the next seven years were devoted to this
project
The Rambler (1750-52) – a twice weekly paper: established him as a great moralist
1749: Irene, Johnson’s tragedy performed at Drury Lane
1749: ‘The Vanity of Human Wishes’ – his first publication to bear his name; his major theme: the
intrusion of desires and hopes that distort reality and lead to false expectations
1755: the publication of the Dictionary
o vast knowledge of the English language
o some deliberately whimsical, prejudiced entries (e.g. Patron: "Commonly a wretch who supports with
insolence, and is paid with flattery")
o most of his definitions are precise and concise (a valuable storehouse of 18 th century meaning and
usage)
o His method: quoting illustrative examples from works of English authors from 1580 to 1750: a
valuable record of the changing of the language
the Dictionary brought him fame but no financial security: he wrote articles and reviews for The Literary
Magazine; The Idler essays (1758-60)
1759: Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia – written in about a week to raise money for his dying mother
1762: a government pension of ₤300 a year
1764: he is a founding member of the Literary Club (Reynolds, Burke, Adam Smith, Goldsmith, Boswell
among its members)
1765: his edition of Shakespeare
From 1776 he worked on The Lives of the Poets: 1779: the first four volumes (22 lives), 1781: the last six
volumes (30 lives), a comprehensive critical account of the lives and works of poets from Cowley to Gray