Jonathan Swift, a Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography

Nokes, David

ISBN 10: 0198128347 / ISBN 13: 9780198128342

Published by Oxford University Press, New York, 1985

About this Item

First Edition Hardcover Jonathan Swift, a Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography Exlibris bookplate inside with latin text There has long been a need for an accessible, comprehensive--and affordable--single-volume life of Swift. This thoughtful, judicious biography promises to fill that need for our generation. Few author's reputations have fluctuated as wildly as Jonathan Swift's. From the beginning, critics and biographers divided into two camps--one hailing a champion of liberty, the other reviling a sadistic misanthrope. For years, moreover, an understanding of Swift's life was clouded by legends of his madness and mysteries surrounding his romantic attachments. Modern scholarship had swept all of this away, however, giving us a much sounder factual basis for comprehending the man's life and work. David Nokes portrays the author of Gulliver's Travels in his multifarious roles as satirist, politician, churchman, and friend. Combining the latest findings of Swiftian scholarship with an astute critical eye, he restores a proper balance between the specialist critics who have overemphasized specific themes or genres in Swift's work and the generalist critics who have missed many of the particularities of Swift's ironies. In so doing, Nokes gives us a biography very much in the spirit Swift himself endorsed: "a conservative humanism which saw specialisation as a first dangerous step towards that distorted simplification of complex human phenomena which characterized the views of all factions and fanatics (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions, Reference books ,and all types of Academic Literature.).

Seller Inventory # 097551

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Jonathan Swift, a Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, New York
• Publication Date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0198128347
• ISBN 13: 9780198128342
• Binding: Cloth
• Edition: First Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Autobiographies -Biography sociology -

About this title

Synopsis

Dr Nokes presents a portrait of Swift in his multifarious roles as satirist, politician, churchman, and friend. In particular, he seeks to re-establish a proper balance between Swift's public and private lives. 'should remain the standard one-volume life for years to come.' John Gross, The New York Times