Excerpt from Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift I hope the gentle reader will excuse me for dwelling on these and the like particulars, which, however insignificant they may appear to groveling vulgar minds, yet will certainly help a philosopher to enlarge his thoughts and imagination, and apply them to the benefit of public as well as private life, which was my sole design in presenting this and other accounts of my travels to the world; wherein I have been chiefly studious of truth, without affecting any ornaments of learning or of style. Born on this day; Jonathan Swift (November 30, 1667 - October 19, 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patricks Cathedral, Dublin. He is remembered for works such as Gullivers Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, Drapiers Letters, The Battle of the Books, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, and A Tale of a Tub. Swift is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry. Swift originally published all of his works under pseudonyms – such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, MB Drapier – or anonymously. He is also known for being a master of two styles of satire: the Horatian and Juvenalian styles. [source: Wikipedia] Image: Jonathan Swift (portrait) by Francis Bindon
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 09:16:18 +0000
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