SUMMARY: Jonathan Swift (November 30, 1667 – October 19, 1745) Irish cleric, Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for Whigs then for Tories), and poet
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Jonathan Swift was an Irish author and journalist and considered to be the foremost prose satirist in English language. His literary work gained him immense fame and he was known as Dublin’s foremost citizen. Most consider Swift’s most famous work to be Gulliver’s Travels (1726), where the stories of Gulliver’s experiences among dwarfs and giants are best known. Swift was able to give to these journeys an air of authenticity and realism and many contemporary readers even believed them to be true.

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin to a family facing difficult circumstances. His father, Jonathan Swift Sr., who was a lawyer and an English civil servant, had died seven month’s before his son was born. Abigail Erick, Swift’s mother, was left without any income to support her family. Historical accounts tell of the infant Jonathan being taken or “stolen” to England by his nurse, and at the age of four he was sent back to Ireland. Still not reunited with his mother Abigail returned to England, and left her son to her wealthy brother-in-law, Uncle Godwin.

Swift did receive an extensive education for a child of his day he studied at Kilkenny Grammar School (1674-82), Trinity College in Dublin (1682-89), receiving his B.A. in 1686 and M.A. in 1692. Despite being afforded ample opportunities in education at school Swift was not a very good student and his teachers noted his headstrong behavior. When the anti-Catholic Revolution began in 1688 and aroused violent reaction in Ireland, Swift made the decision to move to England into the household of Sir William Temple at Moor Park, Surrey. Lady Temple was a relative of Swift’s mother. He worked there as a secretary for many years but did not like his position as a servant in the household.

In 1695 Swift was also ordained in the Church of Ireland. During his time in Moor Park, Swift also was the teacher of a young girl, Esther Johnson, whom he called Stella. After Stella had grown she moved to Ireland to live near him and followed him on his travels to London. Their nature of their relationship was never fully known and was a constant source of gossips. According to some speculations, they were married in 1716. Stella died suddenly in 1728 and Swift kept a lock of her hair among his papers for the rest of his life.

Swift returned to Ireland in 1699. He made several trips to London and gained fame with his essays. Throughout the reign of Queen Anne (1702-14), Swift was one of the central characters in the literary and political life of London. During the ensuing years while Swift tried his hand at politics and diplomacy two constants remained his life-his writings and his love affairs. The women of his interest were to feature prominently in his writings for the rest of his life.

From 1713 to 1742 Swift was also the dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It is thought that Swift suffered from Ménière’s disease or as we know today- Alzheimer’s disease. Many people considered him insane partially due to the fact that from the beginning of his twentieth year he had suffered from deafness. Swift had predicted his own mental decay when he was about 50 and had remarked to the poet Edward Young when they were gazing at the withered crown of a tree: “I shall be like that tree; I shall die from the top.”

In 1742 records indicate that he appears to have suffered a stroke, losing the ability to speak and realizing his worst fears of becoming mentally disabled. In order to protect him from unscrupulous hangers on, who had begun to prey on the great man, his closest companions had him declared of “unsound mind and memory. Jonathan Swift died in Dublin on October 19, 1745 After being laid out in public view for the people of Dublin to pay their last respects, he was buried by Esther Johnson’s side, in accordance with his wishes. The bulk of his fortune was left to establish a hospital for the mentally ill, originally known as St. Patrick’s Hospital for Imbeciles, which opened in 1757, and which still exists as a psychiatric hospital.