Swift's Landscape

Author Carole Fabricant has combed Swift's work with extraordinary care, and nobody who reads this book is likely to see Swift in quite the same way as before. By focusing on his 'landscape,' she not only puts his work in a new light but gives a vivid picture of Swift's daily life. SWIFT'S LANDSCAPE argues for a fundamental reevaluation of Jonathan Swift's place in eighteenth-century literary history. Combining history, biography, and literary criticism, Carole Fabricant restores both Swift's life and his writings to their proper landscape by emphasizing the influence of the author's Irish involvements and environs on his work. This is the first critical study to deal with Swift's entire canon - satires, poems, political and economic tracts, sermons, personal correspondence, and autobiographical writings - and to elucidate the coherence of vision, belief, and sensibility throughout.