Jonathan Swift : our dean / Eugene Hammond.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hammond, Eugene, 1947- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745.

Swift, Jonathan.

Authors, Irish--18th century--Biography.

Authors, Irish.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xviii, 821 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Newark : University of Delaware Press ; Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., [2016]

Summary:

"Jonathan Swift: Our Dean (along with its companion, Jonathan Swift: Irish Blow-in) aspires to be the most accurate and engaging critical biography of Jonathan Swift ever. It builds on the thorough research of Irvin Ehrenpreis's highly regarded 1962-1983 three-volume biography, but re-interprets Swift's life and works by re-assessing his 1714-1720 [period] repudiating the pretender while remaining friends with many who did not, by acknowledging that he likely had a physical affair with Esther Vanhomrigh between 1719 and 1723, by questioning whether in any sense he was a misanthrope, by noting his real care for Esther Johnson in her final illness, and by emphasizing the mutual love between Swift and his caretakers during his final difficult years."-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

Part 1 1714-1720: Teaching Knightley Chetwode How to Behave 1

1 Beached on the Liffey 3

2 Annéantissement, Then Resilience 5

3 Settling In 22

4 Hessy in Dublin 25

5 Truly Home 30

6 "The Public Wind Full in My Teeth" 33

7 Surveillance 41

8 Unalloyed Kindness 48

9 Jacobite? 54

10 From Mentee to Mentor 59

11 How Do You Combat Unlimited Power? 63

12 Swift as Chief Executive Officer 72

13 Clear, Practical Advice 77

14 Political Sermons of the 1720s 86

15 Trying, Despite the Political Odds, to Get the Right People into the Right Places 93

16 The Esther-Swift-Esther Triangle Tests All Three of Its Vertices 97

17 Forty-Seven-Year-Old Swift and Twenty-Six-Year-Old Pope 104

18 Swift's Web of Sustaining Irish Friends 108

19 The Earl of Oxford Walks Out of the Tower 114

20 A New Generation of Friends: Sheridan, Delany, and Dr. Helsham 126

21 From Essentially Cheerful to Essentially Angry: Swift's Great 1718 Personality Shift 131

22 Trying to Let Go of the Earl of Oxford 137

23 Coffee 141

24 Reaffirming Respect for Esther Johnson 148

25 Restoking the Publication Fires 155

Part 2 1720-1726; "I Attempted To Rise, But Was [At First] Not Able To Stir" 159

26 Struggling with Illness 161

27 Free Again to Speak? 164

28 In the Shadow of Molly's Decline, Hessy Living a Half-Life with Swift 174

29 True to Both? 182

30 Looking for a Course 187

31 The First European Microlender 192

32 Chief Justice Whitshed and Robinson Crusoe Beget Gulliver's Travels 195

33 Keeping Hessy at a Distance to Concentrate on Gulliver's Travels 207

34 Fair to Middling Poems, and an Elegy for the Duke of Marlborough 221

35 A Humbling Year: 1723 224

36 A Fourth Vanhomrigh Succumbs to Consumption 232

37 Getting Away 241

38 Reaffirming Commitment to and Respect for Esther Johnson, This Time Doing it Well 244

39 Christmas at Quilca, Steeped in the Mindset of Gulliver's Travels 253

40 Standing Up to British Presumption 256

41 "One [Deaf] Man in his Shirt" Refusing to Be Intimidated 270

42 Against All Odds, Stymying Wood and Walpole 283

43 Wielding Pickaxes, Digging Peat, Re-Courting (and Sealing his Love for) Esther Johnson 295

44 David Fells Goliath 305

45 Preparing for England, 1726 315

Part 3 1726-1728: Choosing Esther Johnson Over Professional Opportunity in England 319

46 Tête-á-Tête with Sir Robert Walpole 321

47 Caring for Esther Johnson 337

48 A Voyage to Lilliput 342

49 A Voyage to Brobdingnag 352

50 A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg, and Japan 359

51 A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms 369

52 Aftermath 387

53 What Did Swift Believe? 391

54 In Ireland while Gulliver's Travels Began to Do Its Work 393

55 Last Visit to England 399

56 Swift's Literary Career Capped with Accolades in Paris (Not) 412

57 Choosing Patty Rolt over Alexander Pope 417

58 King Lear with a Sense of Humor on the Heath at Holyhead 419

59 Returning to Esther Johnson, and in Consequence, to Ireland 426

60 Losing Esther Johnson in Her Prime 431

Part 4 1728-1731: Premature Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift 437

61 Even Without Esther Johnson, Deciding to Stay in Ireland 439

62 Sara Harding Redivivus 443

63 The Intelligencer-Full Talent and Vigor, But Unsustained 453

64 Eight Months with the Achesons 463

65 Without Esther Johnson and Archbishop King, Ungovemed 477

66 Rough Drafts for a Modest Proposal 487

67 Drapier's Hill 496

68 A Modest Proposal and a Stunningly Modest Response 501

69 OK, if Nobody Will Listen... 508

70 The Triumfeminate and the Pilkingtons 513

71 Libels and Epistles 521

72 Swift's First (But Not His Last) "Freedom of the City" Fiasco 526

73 Final Visit to a Couple about to Separate 537

74 Ghost Writing for Captain Creichton 541

75 Letters and Fun 546

76 Snow White (Laetitia Pilkington) and the Seven Dwarfs (Ten Clergymen) 553

77 Incendiary in Politics, Loving as a Friend, but Sometimes Confusing the Two 557

78 Let's Try a Comic Poem about my Death 568

Part 5 1732-1745 Internal Monitor Not Always Engaged 577

79 The Bishops Get Their Due 579

80 Be Wary of Presbyterians, But More Wary of Americans 587

81 Everybody Poops 592

82 Fully Home in the Deanery 605

83 Financial Security 609

84 Life with Laetitia Pilkington, 1732-1733 622

85 Fighting Robert Walpole through Local Elections 632

86 With No Parliament in Session, Life Is Good in Dublin 645

87 Parliament Returns 653

88 Swift's Better Business Bureau 659

89 Capping an Otherwise Successful Year by Being Threatened by an MP 663

90 Stepping Aside for the Next Generation 666

91 Still Able to Rise to the Occasion 677

92 The Good Martha Whiteway 686

93 Disagreeable Quilca, Agreeable Martha Whiteway 696

94 One More Hopeful Young Man Taken 702

95 Jailed Printers Revive Swift's Pen 707

96 Difficult, But Still with a Sense of Humor 722

97 Badges for Beggars 730

98 Publishing the History of Queen Anne's Ministry (Not) 735

99 Humility Recommended and Practiced 742

100 Distorting the Record 749

101 Swift's Guide to Domestic Guerilla Warfare 757

102 One Step Forward, Two Steps Back 761

103 Swift's Will 770

104 Last Glimpses of Swift 775

105 Loving Care: John Lyon, Martha Whiteway, Anne Ridgeway 782

106 Our Dean 786.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Hammond, Eugene, 1947- author. Jonathan Swift

ISBN:

9781611496093

1611496098

OCLC:

930683499