Jonathan Swift : Irish blow-in /
Eugene Hammond.
- Newark : University Of Delaware Press, (c)2016.
- 1 online resource
Includes bibliographies and index.
Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- The Author to the Reader -- Acknowledgments -- List of Abbreviations for Frequently Cited Sources -- Part 1: 1667-1689: Blown in to Ireland -- 1: Born to the Protestant Ascendancy,and to His Own Father -- 2: Kidnapped -- 3: Ill Treatment from His Nearest Relations? -- 4: A Playful but Well-Disciplined Schoolboy -- 5: Acquiring the Prejudices of Education -- 6: Parody, Humor, and the Satirical Tripos Tradition -- Part 2: 1689-1699: Prolonged Adolescence -- 7: Wholesale Protestant Flight -- 8: The Temples, and Bridget and Esther Johnson 9: Impressing Sir William with Good Penmanship, Skilled Oral Reading, and Being a Good Listener -- 10: The Battle of the Boyne -- 11: Befriending Ten-Year-Old Esther Johnson -- 12: Life Mastered at Age Twenty-Five -- 13: Choosing His Grandfather's Career over His Father's -- 14: Your First Job Is Almost Always a Bad One -- 15: An Equivocating Dodge from Marriage -- 16: For the Time Being, Writing Trumps Service to the Church -- 17: Respected Secretary, but Already on the Wrong Side of Thirty -- Part 3: 1699-1704: Willows, Account Books, Taking Responsibility for Two Women Formerly in Service 18: With the Help of Lady Giffard -- 19: Professional Independence -- 20: Jettisoning Jane Waring -- 21: Rescuing Esther Johnson and Rebecca Dingley from Lives of Service -- 22: Political Theory, Never Forgetting Human Nature -- 23: Building a Comfortable Life in Ireland -- 24: Making a Laracor Cabin a Home -- 25: Swift the Historian -- 26: Throwing the Dice with A Tale of a Tub -- 27: Woops! Rev. Tisdall Proposes to Esther Johnson -- 28: After Three Prefatory Pieces, the Preface -- 29: Rethinking Dante's Divine Comedy -- 30: Digressing to the Core of Our Being -- 31: The Tale in Context 32: The Spider and the Bee -- 33: Stirring Up Spirituality -- 34: Planting Minefields in Your Own Path through Life -- Part 4: 1704-1710: After a Rural Retreat with Esther Johnson: Gaining Traction in the English Worlds of Politics and of Literature -- 35: Serving the Irish Church -- 36: The Vicar of Laracor vs. the Freethinking Matthew Tindal -- 37: Union with the Wrong Dependent Kingdom -- 38: At the Age of Forty, a Career Jump-Start -- 39: Spilled Coffee -- 40: To Mischief Swift -- 41: The Coffee House Life -- 42: Sacrificing the Test Act for the First Fruits? 43: The Sensible Moderate's Manifesto -- 44: Inconveniencing Men of Quality -- 45: Swift a Projector? -- 46: Catching a Bit of the Spleen -- 47: The Injured Lady, Déjà Vu -- 48: The Queen's Bounty Redux -- 49: At Play -- 50: Breathing Space in Ireland -- 51: Family and Friends -- Part 5: 1710-1711: Political and Personal Exhilaration -- 52: Home: England or Ireland? -- 53: The Politics of September 1710 -- 54: He Understands Me, He Likes Me, He Respects Me (I'm Pretty Sure) -- 55: Sir Matthew Dudley's Extraordinary Letter -- 56: Extending the Queen's Bounty to Ireland -- 57: Suddenly, an Examiner
"Jonathan Swift: Irish Blow-in (along with its companion, Jonathan Swift: Our Dean) aspires to be the most accurate and engaging critical biography of Jonathan Swift ever published. It builds on the thorough research of Irvin Ehrenpreis's highly regarded 1962-1983 three-volume biography, but reinterprets Swift's life and works by reassessing his childhood, stressing his exuberance, honestly portraying his intense affection for Esther Johnson (he called her "saucebox" and not "Stella" when she was in her twenties), and not projecting Swift's later-in-life angry behavior back onto his first forty-seven years"--