Jonathan Swift — "When dunces are satiric, I take it for a panegyric."
When dunces are satiric, I take it for a panegyric.
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More from Jonathan Swift
"A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle."
"But the greatest part of the world are such as would be glad to have their consciences eased, and to live in a state of nature."
"It is computed, that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death, rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end."
"Fine words! I wonder where you stole them."
"Dogs have at least the advantage over men, that they discover their friends, and bark at their enemies."
About Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Anglo-Irish satirist and Dean of Dublin's St Patrick's Cathedral whose Gulliver's Travels (1726) and A Modest Proposal (1729) are the canonical English-language satires. Closely associated with Alexander Pope (Scriblerus Club poet and collaborator) and John Gay (Beggar's Opera author and satirical contemporary). For an intellectual contrast, see Daniel Defoe, English Whig journalist and Robinson Crusoe author (1660-1731) — Defoe's Crusoe (1719) celebrates Enlightenment self-reliance and the colonial-mercantile project; Swift's Gulliver (1726) systematically dismantles every form of human pretension Defoe celebrated. The cleanest Augustan Whig-vs-Tory literary pairing — optimistic-empirical vs misanthropic-satirical.