A Modest Proposal and other Short Stories

Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet, and Anglican cleric. He wrote A Tale of a Tub (1704), An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712), Gulliver’s Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729). The Encyclopaedia Britannica considered Swift the most significant English prose satirist. He wrote all anonymously under pseudonyms and specialized in Horatian and Juvenalian satire. Deadpan, ironic writing, especially in A Modest Proposal, has led to the term 'Swiftian.' William Temple returned to Moor Park in 1691 after leaving Temple for Ireland due to health issues. He became an established Church of Ireland priest after earning his M.A. from Hart Hall, Oxford, in 1692. The Diocese of Connor appointed him prebend of Kilroot in 1694. Swift, who called Jane Waring 'Varina,' may have dated Waring in his remote community. He helped publish Temple’s memoirs and correspondence after returning to England and Moor Park in 1696. Swift briefly edited his memoirs in England after Temple died in 1699. His work alienated Temple’s family and friends, including his sister, Martha Lady Giffard. Swift tried to talk to King William but failed and became the Earl of Berkeley’s secretary and chaplain. He wrote many of his works in Trim, County Meath. Trinity College Dublin awarded Swift a Doctor of Divinity in 1702. In October, Esther Johnson and Rebecca Dingley joined him in Ireland. Some believe Swift and Esther Johnson were secretly married, while others don’t. Swift, an influential 17th-century politician, supported the Glorious Revolution and was initially a Whig. The return of the Catholic monarchy and 'Papist' absolutism worried him. Swift published The Conduct of the Allies in 1711 after supporting the Tory government in 1710. Henry St. John and Robert Harley often consulted him as a Tory government insider. In London, Swift became involved with Esther Vanhomrigh, one of their daughters.