Jonathan Swift Research Paper

Jonathan Swift was born on November 30, 1667, in Dublin, Ireland. His father died before he was born and left Swift’s mother broke, so Swift was raised mainly by a nurse and his uncle. Swift was put through the best schools in Ireland; and there, he discovered that he loathed strict schools due to the physical reprimanding and incessant teaching of the Latin language. He even attended Trinity College in Dublin, which is a very esteemed university, but his education was unexceptional and hardly noteworthy. Swift’s difficult childhood and resentment towards education probably played a part in influencing him to write in a more unconventional way. His opposition to his formal education likely steered him away from the traditional writing style

There, he began work as the secretary to a statesman named Sir William Temple. Sir William Temple was very well-known and influential, so Swift was able to be exposed to similar people during his service for the statesman. This may have given Swift an idea of how those types of people acted and how he would be able to portray them as characters. Around the same time, he tutored a girl named Esther “Stella” Johnson. It is said that they were secretly married; however, there is little evidence to suggest that they were any more than just friends. Nonetheless, Swift later went on to write the Journal to Stella, around 1710, so she must have had some type of major impact on Swift’s life. Around his thirties, Swift began to show signs of a disease that caused him to feel nausea, tinnitus, and and vertigo. However, he continued to move between Ireland and England, write many essays and literary works, and occasionally work for Temple. He was even ordained an Anglican priest, in 1695, and was made the dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Needless to say, Swift was not hindered by his developing disease, and it actually may have helped to fuel his writings. Swift had a sense of Irish patriotism, and it is revealed in his literary works that were mostly satirical writings criticizing the politics in England and Ireland. He published many works anonymously, including Gulliver’s Travels, but he still became famous among many Irish readers for writing such