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)
descensus Averno facilis est