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Swift and Others

Claude Rawson author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:19th Mar '15

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Swift and Others cover

Explores the impact of the great satirist Jonathan Swift on other writers of the English Augustan tradition.

Leading literary critic and scholar Claude Rawson discusses the impact of Jonathan Swift, and the penetration of his ideas, personality and style, on major writers of the English Augustan tradition. Swift's influence extended beyond friends and admirers to adversaries and others who became great ironists in his shadow.Jonathan Swift's influence on the writings and politics of England and Ireland was reinforced by a combination of contradictory forces: an authoritarian attachment to tradition and rule, and a vivid responsiveness to the disorders of a modernity he resisted and yet helped to create. He was, perhaps even more than Pope, a dominant voice of his times. The rich variety of the literary culture to which he belonged shows the penetration of his ideas, personality and style. This is true of writers who were his friends and admirers (Pope), of adversaries (Mandeville, Johnson), of several who became great ironists in his shadow (Gibbon, Austen), and of some surprising examples of Swiftian afterlife (Chatterton). Claude Rawson, leading scholar of the works of Swift, brings together recent essays, as well as classic earlier work extensively revised, to offer fresh insights into an era when Swift's voice was a pervasive presence.

'Rawson is a leading critic of eighteenth-century literature. He combines profound learning with tremendous range and stylistic grace, and he approaches everything he writes about with great originality.' J. T. Lynch, Choice

ISBN: 9781107034785

Dimensions: 235mm x 158mm x 21mm

Weight: 570g

320 pages