Jonathan Swift
Biography
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and Anglican cleric whose scathing prose made him one of the most formidable writers in the English language. Born in Dublin to English parents, he was educated at Trinity College and later ordained in the Church of Ireland. His early masterpiece A Tale of a Tub (1704) established his reputation for savage irony, while the political pamphlets he wrote on behalf of both Whigs and Tories gave him enormous influence. Gulliver's Travels (1726), published anonymously, became an instant classic — outwardly a fantastic voyage narrative, inwardly a corrosive indictment of human pride and institutional folly. Appointed Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, Swift championed Irish causes, most memorably in A Modest Proposal (1729). His later years were shadowed by illness, but his literary legacy as the supreme satirist of his age endures.
