Swift's Switch: The Intricacies of Turning Tory

Authors

  • Steven Scott

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21971/P7W885

Abstract

Jonathan Swift is widely recognized as a major writer in English. His Gulliver's Travels, A Tale of a Tub, and "A Modest Proposal," in particular, are masterpieces of political satire. Swift was never a politician in his own right, but the politics of his writing and his role as a politically committed priest in the Irish Anglican Church made him important nonetheless as a political and historical figure. In fact, for a time in the early eighteenth century, Swift truly became a part of English politics, first by negotiating with the English government on the part of the Irish Church, and then by beginning to write political propaganda for the Tory regime then in power. Near the end of 1710, Jonathan Swift changed his political allegiance from Whig to Tory. This paper discusses the four major explanations that have been advanced regarding Swift's "switch," and suggests that none of the four is adequate, though all of them contain elements of what is likely to have happened. It suggests, further, that Swift's switch was at least as much a result of the changing nature of political parties and the party system as inconsistency on Swift's part.

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Author Biography

Steven Scott

Steven Scott received his BA from Wilfrid Laurier University and his MA from the University of Alberta. He is presently a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Alberta, where he lectures on English language and literature. His research interests include not only English literature and literary theory, but history and philosophy as well, especially as they relate to literature and literary figures. He is presently writing his dissertation, which is on American Postmodernism.

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Published

2008-02-19

How to Cite

Scott, S. (2008). Swift’s Switch: The Intricacies of Turning Tory. Past Imperfect, 2. https://doi.org/10.21971/P7W885

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Section

Articles