Swift and history : politics and the English past

Resource Information

The work Swift and history : politics and the English past represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in European University Institute. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Swift and history : politics and the English past

Title remainder

politics and the English past

Statement of responsibility

Ashley Marshall

Title variation

Swift & History

Creator

• Marshall, Ashley

Subject

• Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1660-1714
• Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1714-1760
• Historiography -- Political aspects -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century
• Politics and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century
• England -- Historiography
• Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745 -- Criticism and interpretation
• Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745 -- Political and social views
• Tory Party (Great Britain) -- History -- 18th century
• Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745

Language

eng

Summary

Swift has been said to have little interest in history; his attempts to write it have been disparaged and his desire to become Historiographer Royal ridiculed. Ashley Marshall argues that history mattered enormously to Swift. He read a vast amount of history and uses historical examples copiously in his own works. This study traces Swift's classical and modern historiographical inheritance; analyses his unsuccessful attempt to write a history of England; and offers radical re-reading of his History of the Four Last Years of the Queen. A systematic analysis of Swift's view of 'authority' is highly revealing. His attitudes toward power and authority, sovereigns' and subjects' rights, parliamentary representation, and succession are reflected in his lifelong engagement with and pervasive use of the past. Studying Swift and history enables a deeper understanding of his authoritarian and historiographically Tory outlook - and how it changed when Swift's party fell from power in 1714.--

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

UkCbUP

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Series statement

Cambridge Social Sciences eBooks