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January 12, 2009
Thinking well: Jonathan Swift
Irish clergyman and writer Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), the author of Gulliver's Travels, was wild, but maybe not quite as "sick" as his contemporary critics thought; they saw him through the lens of the many illnesses that plagued his last decade and put him in a permanently bad mood. Certainly, he had no fair shake from any of us in the last century, when we all went nuts on Freud. True, Swift could be abrasive. He made enemies, both literary and political. Yet who with a caring heart writes satire these days? Who feels, thinks on their own, writes about it, acts, and is not afraid of the consequences?
Posted by JD Hull at January 12, 2009 07:50 PM