Swift and Pope
Satirists in Dialogue

In this book, Dustin Griffin explores the lifelong conversation between two great eighteenth-century English writers, Swift and Pope.

Dustin Griffin (Author)

9781107422544, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 July 2014

276 pages, 9 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.37 kg

'Griffin's [Swift and Pope] is a rewarding read; a detailed and often moving portrait of one of the great literary friendships.' Louise Curran, English Studies

Swift and Pope were lifelong friends and fellow satirists with shared literary sensibilities. But there were significant differences - demographic, psychological, and literary - between them: an Anglican and a Roman Catholic, an Irishman and an Englishman, one deeply committed to politically engaged poetry, and the other reluctant to engage in partisanship and inclined to distinguish poetry from politics. In this book, Dustin Griffin argues that we need to pay more attention to those differences, which both authors recognised and discussed. Their letters, poems, and satires can be read as stages in an ongoing conversation or satiric dialogue: each often wrote for the other, sometimes addressing him directly, sometimes emulating or imitating. In some sense, each was constantly replying to the other. From their lifelong dialogue emerges not only the extraordinary affection and admiration they felt for each other, but also the occasional irritation and resentment that kept them both together and apart.

A Swift–Pope chronology
Introduction: conversing interchangeably
1. The four last years of Queen Anne
2. Drive the world before them
3. Satyrist and philosopher
4. In the manner of Dr Swift
5. Last things
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB], Literature & literary studies [D]