Jonathan Swift Biography and Works.

Jonathan Swift (November 30, 1667-October 19, 1745) was an Anglo Irish satirist, political pamphleteer, essayist and poet. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Swift began his education at the age of six. Later, he graduated from the Trinity College in 1686.

After the political turmoil during the Glorious Revolution, Swift came to England and became secretary to Sir William Temple, a diplomat and man of letters.

It was the period between 1696 and 1699 that Swift composed most of his first great work – A Tale of a Tub, a prose satire on the religious extremes represented by Roman Catholicism and Calvinism and The Battle of the Books in 1697. In 1699, Swift travelled to Ireland as chaplain and secretary to the Earl of Berkeley.

He is remembered for works, such as Gulliver’s Travels, A Journal to Stella, A Modest Proposal, Drapier’s Letters, The Battle of the Books and An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity.

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 the Juvenalian styles’.

Swift’s final trip to England took place in 1727. He published five volumes of Swift-Pope Miscellanies’ between 1727 and 1736. Swift’s ghastly ‘A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed’ was published in 1731.

By 1735, his Meniere’s disease became more acute, resulting in periods of dizziness and nausea.

After a prolonged illness, Swift died on October 19, 1745.