Saturday, February 16, 2013

“Dying From the Top Down: The Dementia of Jonathan Swift”

Oh man, this chapter is one of the big reasons I BOUGHT this book (well, that and the Bronte chapter….and Joyce….and Yeats…..and….), but just the epigraphs to it are nearly making me cry. //clutches the Dean


Swift is a diseased writer. He remains permanently in a depressed mood which in most people is only intermittent, rather as though someone suffering from jaundice or the after-effects of influenza should have the energy to write books….Yet curiously enough he is one of the writers I admire with least reserve, and Gulliver’s Travels, in particular, is a book which it seems impossible for me to grow tired of.

- George Orwell, “Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver’s Travels”


The least miserable among them, appear to be those who turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories.

- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels


Young….found Swift at some distance gazing intently at the top of a lofty elm, whose head had been blasted. Upon Young’s approach he pointed to it, saying, “I shall be like that tree; I shall die first at the top.”

- Thomas Sheridan, Life of Doctor Swift


Epigraphs from Shakespeare’s Tremor and Orwell’s Cough, John J. Ross (it really is quite well-written)