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The Irish poet, political writer Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) ranks as the foremost prose satirist in the English language and as one of the greatest satirists in world literature.Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland, on Nov. 30, 1667. His father died a few months before Swift"s birth. He received his bachelor of arts degree in 1686. Swift continued his education at Trinity.After his uncle"s death and political violence in Ireland in 1688, he leave Ireland to seek his mother"s counsel in Leicester.
Swift became the secretary to Sir William Temple at the end of 1689. At Moor pack near London, Swift first met Esther Johnson , who was 8 years old at the time. She was the daughter of a servant, and Swift--who was 22 years old--taught her how to write and formed a lifelong friendship with her. Swift lived at Moor Park until Temple"s death in 1699. During this 3-year period Swift read and wrote extensively. He wrote his first essay in satiric prose, The Battle of the Books in 1697, but not published until 1704.
After Temple"s death Swift, He became chaplain to the 2d Earl of Berkeley, a lord justice of Ireland. In 1701 Swift received a doctor of divinity degree from Trinity College, Dublin. Unhappy with life in Ireland, he paid frequent visits to Leicester and London. With the advent of a new Tory government in England and the pending impeachment of Whig leaders, Swift decided to put his pen to political use. In 1704 he published his first great satires, A Tale of a Tub, The Battle of the Books, and The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit.
In 1710 he became the chief journalist for the next 4 years and principal pamphleteer for new tory government . Swift wrote for the Tory paper, the Examiner. His most influential work of this period of his greatest political power in England was The Conduct of the Allies (1711).
In 1720 Swift published anonymously his Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures, in which he urged the Irish to discontinue using English goods. Political events once again made Swift a national hero in 1724-1725. His six famous letters, signed M. B. Drapier, written between April and December 1724, were a protest against English debasement of Irish coinage and the inflation that would ensue. The Drapier"s Letters inflamed all Ireland, caused the cancellation of the coinage scheme, and made Swift into an Irish hero.
Swift"s popularity remained at a high pitch, and he performed his ecclesiastical duties with strictness and regularity. His illness reached a crisis, and he emerged paralyzed. Swift died in Dublin on Oct. 19, 1745, and he was buried in St. Patrick"s. He left his great fortune to build a hospital for the mentally challenged.