SWIFT, JONATHAN

born Nov. 30, 1667, Dublin, Ire. died Oct. 19, 1745, Dublin Jonathan Swift, detail of an oil painting by Charles Jervas; in the National Portrait Gallery, pseudonym Isaac Bickerstaff Anglo-Irish author who was the foremost prose satirist in the English language. Besides the celebrated novel Gulliver's Travels (1726), he wrote such shorter works as A Tale of a Tub (1704) and A Modest Proposal (1729). Additional reading Irvin Ehrenpreis, Swift: The Man, His Works, and the Age, 3 vol. (19621983); and John Middleton Murry, Jonathan Swift (1954, reissued 1967), are biographies. Annotated bibliographies of Swift criticism include Louis Landa and James Edward Tobin, Jonathan Swift: A List of Critical Studies Published from 1895 to 1945 (1945, reprinted 1975); James J. Stathis (comp.), A Bibliography of Swift Studies, 19451965 (1967); and Richard H. Rodino, Swift Studies, 19651980 (1984). Kathleen Williams (comp.), Swift (1970), collects contemporary criticism. Peter J. Schakel, The Poetry of Jonathan Swift (1978), examines the poetry in its biographical and historical contexts. Peter Steele, Jonathan Swift: Preacher and Jester (1978), is a psychological study of his works.