Marshall Swift and History

Politics and the English Past
Erscheinungsjahr 2015
ISBN: 978-1-316-31093-9
Verlag: Cambridge University Press
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 0 Seiten

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Marshall, Ashley

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Geschichtswissenschaft: Theorie und Methoden
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; 1. Swift and the historians, ancient and modern; 2. Swift, Temple, and the history of England; 3. The uses of history in Swiftian satire and polemic; 4. 'Swift's rhapsodical Tory-book': the aims and motives of The History of the Four Last Years of the Queen; 5. Swift and authority; Conclusion: Swift's Tory historiography; Bibliography.

Über Autor(innen)

Marshall, Ashley
Ashley Marshall is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, and is the author of The Practice of Satire in England, 1658–1770 (2013).