Jonathan Swift: Poems selected by Derek Mahon (Poet to Poet: An Essential Choice of Classic Verse)

by JonathanSwift (Author), Derek Mahon (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $3.25

  In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to the most important poets in our literature. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was born in Dublin, of English parents, and educated at Trinity College Dublin. London-based for many years, and a noted satirist during the reign of Queen Anne, he returned to Dublin in 1713 as Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Gulliver's Travels appeared in 1726. Derek Mahon was born in Belfast in 1941, studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and has held journalistic and academic appointments in London and New York. He has received numerous awards including a Lannan Award and the Scot Moncrieff Translation Prize. His Collected Poems was published in 1999.

• Used

  Paperback
  1984

  $3.25

  This volume of Swift's work is unique in selecting from the full range of the prose, poetry, and letters spanning an active fifty-year writing career. The presentation of his work, being chronological rather than thematic, gives a much clearer feeling of how Swift's ideas developed and were expressed in different styles of writing. Some of the more familiar 'literary' and satirical pieces, such as A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books, as well as political pamphlets, pieces for the popular press, and a good sample of correspondance, notably in his Journal to Stella, provides a lively commentary on the turbulent events of the time. There is no doubt that Swifts's 'certain uncommon way of thinking' inspired, teased, and affronted his own, and future generations.