Recent Studies of Swift: A Survey

REVIE\VS RECENT STUDIES OF SWIFT: A SURVEY* HERBERT DAVIS I t is curious that, while Swift's cynical.references tQ the neglect which he anticipated from posterity have never been justified, some of his most ironical jibes have been almost literally fulfilled. Where's now this fav'rite of Apollo? Departed:-and his works must follow; Must undergo the common fate; His kind of wit is out of date. P~rhaps at no time in the last two hundred years has that been true. His works have aroused loathing and horror at times, but they have never been entirely neglected. And to-day his youthful impudent challenge to the critics, after belabouring them so mercilessly -"I hope I have deserved so well of their whole body as to meet with generous and tender usage attheir hands"-falls harmless to the ground, so ready is their whole body to offer him admiration and homage. Indeed, in looking through the work of Swift's biographers and critics and editors during only the last seven years, we may seem to be reviewing the results of some such preposterous, experiment as that which he gaily proposed in A Tale of 'a Tub, namely that ~~every prince in Christendom will take seven of the deepest scholars in his dominions, and shut them up dose for seven years' in seven chambers, with a com~and to write seven ample commentaries on th~s comprehensive discourse." We shall at any rate be concerned with the work of some of the "deepest scholars" in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, and America. After Monsieur Emile Ponsl had published, in 1925, the first volume of his careful and exhaustive study of Swift, which promised to gather up and sift and test all the available evidence, it might have been expected that no further work:' of this kind would be deemed necessary for some time. But there soon appeared a. book by that professional biographer Mr. Stephen Gwynn/and a striking *This is the first of a new type of article with which it is proposed to conclude, from time to time, the review section: namely, a survey, by a specialist, of the recent work done in some field ofliterary, philosophical, or historical study. The notes, placed at the end, combine the functions of title-list and footnote. Professor Davis's'survey was read before the Modern Language Association ofAmerica. 273 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY modern character-study by Mr. Carl vari Doren.3 The first is drawn in the conventional manner: a full-length figur~ of the Dean, with his ,Works" in his hands, and,-as a background, glimpses ofthe main scenes of his life: idyllic-Moor Park, and Stella walking in Sir William -Temple's garden; tempestuous-the Co~rt of Queen Anne with the doomed Tory politicians, and at a window the doomed Vanessa; triumphant-greatness in exile overcoming the enemies of Ireland; tragic-dying like a rat in a hole. The second is a beautiful simplification in the manner of much contemporary portraiture. In his own words Mr. van Doren ((has preferred to examine the entire ,evidence, to select what he believes to be the truth, to tell it, and to leave gossip where _gos'sip belongs.... His difficulties belong with the secrets of his trade." We are given, that is to say, in clearly defined outline, a study of his subject placed in a certain light, and presented convincingly from a definite point of view. A very distinct personality emerges, arecognizable character, lifted clear out of the confusion of the age and set immediately before us, out of the reach of the shadows cast by intervening time. How is it then-you may ask-that the result is so different from that more recent study in the modern manner, the work of Mario Rossi and Joseph Hone,4 entitled Swift, or The Egotist? One of the most obvious reasons is that such a method is clearly not suitable for team work. A young ltalian, interested in English philosophy, having combined with Mr. Hone to produce a book on Berkeley, suddenly discovers a clue to solve all the enigmas of Swift, which he duly...