Page 140 - Gullivers
P. 140

Swist’s multi-generic freedoms did, however, bequeath a rich panoply
of literary forms to his Anglo-Irish successors. Writers could select from
a range of skilled achievements within individual literary forms while others could find inspiration within his multi-generic approach. However, Swist and satire have become synonymous and it is no surprise to find his legacy most pronounced in the work of those who seek to comment on the Anglo- Irish situation in a less than favourable fashion via this form of writing.
Swist has lest us 150 or so prose works, 280 pœms and over 800 letters. Alongside the ever popular Gulliver’s Travels his most celebrated works,
in terms of Anglo-Irish writing, are A Tale of a Tub (1704), The Battle of the Books (1697), The Drapier’s Letters (1724) and A Modest Proposal (1729).
The latter two texts were historically and economically significant in Irish history and Swist’s reputation as a heroic figure rests on the political success achieved through their publication. In all Swist’s ‘Irish’ publications we find humour, satire and biting critiques of the prevailing thought systems and, more importantly, of Swist’s immediate political and historical struggles. These two are connected – that is philosophy and politics, and this is the genius of Swist’s writing – the original marriage of morality and pressing political and social matters. Swist could qualify as the first Anglo-Irish writer, as Declan Kiberd puts it, (in relation to much later writing, but appropriate here nonetheless) to find the Irish colonial situation ‘desperately interesting and interestingly desperate’.
‘The Dane’, (the Hiberno-English pronunciation of ‘The Dean’) as he was known, became the subject of many anecdotes, told in both English and Irish during his lifetime and for many years following his death. Although his racial identity and religious affiliation as a Church of Ireland cleric set him apart from the native population, his robust character, bawdy conversation and
his outspoken criticism of his own community’s mismanagement of Ireland endeared him to the Irish and he was hailed as a supporter if not a champion
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