Opis: The Life of Jonathan Swift, Vol. 1 - Forster John

Excerpt from The Life of Jonathan Swift, Vol. 1: Volume the First, 1667-1711

The subject of this look has been in my thoughts for many years, and to the collection of materials for illustration of it I have given much labor and time.

The rule of measuring what is knowable of a famous man by the inverse ratio of what has been said about him, is applicable to Swift in a marked degree. Few men who have been talked about so much are known so little. His writings and his life are connected so closely, that to judge of either fairly with an imperfect knowledge of the other is not possible; and only thus can be excused what Jeffrey hardily said, and many have too readily believed - that he was an apostate in politics, infidel or indifferent in religion, a defamer of humanity, the slanderer of statesmen who had served him, and destroyer of the women who loved him. Belief in this, or any part of it, may he pardonable where the life is known insufficiently, and the writings not at all; but to a competent acquaintance with either or both it is monstrous as well as incredible.

Swift's later time, when he was governing Ireland as well as his deanery, and the world was filled with the fame of Gulliver, is broadly and intelligibly written. I But as to all the rest, his life is a work unfinished; to which no one has brought the minute examination indispensably required, where the whole of a career has to be considered to get at the proper comprehension of single parts of it. The writers accepted as authorities for the obscurer portion are found to be practically worthless, and the defect is not supplied by the later, and greater biographers.

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Szczegóły: The Life of Jonathan Swift, Vol. 1 - Forster John

Nazwa: The Life of Jonathan Swift, Vol. 1 Volume the First, 1667-1711 (Classic Reprint)
Autor: Forster John
Wydawnictwo: FB &c Ltd
Kod paskowy: 9781330701256
Języki: angielski
Ilość stron: 492
Format: 15.2x22.9cm
Oprawa: Miękka

Recenzje: The Life of Jonathan Swift, Vol. 1 - Forster John