The eternal sunshine of a far from spotless mind

John Martin's biography of Jonathan Swift is a brilliant dissection of the man who wrote Gulliver's Travels. By Edward O'Hare.

The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard once said that the life story of Jonathan Swift is an archetypal tale of human folly: in his youth he worked to build an insane asylum, in old age he was an inmate in one

But there was nothing normal about Swift’s life, as The Man Himself, John Martin’s rambunctious new biography shows.

Martin’s gripe with previous Swift biographers is that in explaining how the man created the work they have ignored the loves, dreams and disappointments that drove him to write. Providing us with an account of Swift’s inner life and of the outer world in which he played so colourful a part is Martin’s objective and in this he is triumphant.

Since Swift became famous for his paradoxes and riddles it seems natural that his life should present a multitude of enigmas. The most puzzling of these is the mystery surrounding his birth.

Martin contends that Swift, who was born in 1667, was probably the illegitimate son of an English Lord, Sir John Temple, and Abigail Errick, an English woman who was the wife of Jonathan Swift Snr, an Irish solicitor who was already married. Swift was handed around between relatives before being sent to Kilkenny College, where he endured ten years of “the terror of the rod, bloody noses and broken shins” and was trained for the Anglican Ministry.

At 16 Swift enrolled at Trinity College where he failed his exams and had to buy his degree for £44. He then went to work as secretary to Sir William Temple, his putative father’s son. At Temple’s estate Swift began to ingratiate himself with the English nobility. He also met Esther ‘Stella’ Johnson, an eight-year-old child who may have been his niece and who would become one of his great loves.

After studying at Oxford Swift became a Doctor of Divinity. This brought him a step closer to his life’s ambition, to be an English Bishop of tremendous power and influence.

Unfortunately for Swift, he was already endangering this prospect. As a young man he was described as having a “handsome face” and “a tongue that was witty beyond measure” but these traits were not enough to stop Swift gaining a reputation for mistreating women and he had to dash from parish to parish to avoid scandal. Martin ascribes this behaviour to two factors.

Firstly, Swift lived in an age when men were raised to consider themselves supreme beings with a right to sexual favours from practically any woman. Secondly, Swift’s origins made him wary of women as well as extraordinarily dependent upon them. This he resented, and his psychological uncertainties about females were often taken for misogyny.

Swift knew himself well enough to say that he “would do mischief if not usefully employed” but the only position he could secure was a prebendary, first at Kilroot and then at Rathbeggan. By 1700 Swift organised for Stella to come to Ireland so that he could use her inheritance to finance his schemes. He did the same for Hester ‘Vanessa’ Vanhomrigh, a merchant’s daughter. Both of these women became as infatuated with Swift as he did with them, and both chose to live in Ireland for most of their lives to be near him.

Then, in 1710, the Anglican Archbishop instructed Swift to travel to London to negotiate the status of the Church of Ireland. The period that followed was the apogee of his life. In London Swift’s staggering wit and conversational skills saw him reach centre of a whirlwind of unrelenting social, political and artistic activity.

He became embroiled in the struggle between the Whigs and the Tories and joined the Scriblerus Club, a band of poets and playwrights, including Pope, Gay and Addison, who sought to restore the values of the classical golden age, and whose meetings in London’s salons and coffee houses became the stuff of legend.

Swift was on his uppers but his rampant sexuality jeopardized his newfound standing. In total Martin believes he fathered eight illegitimate children and had carnal knowledge of at least fifty women. Martin also holds that Swift had several homosexual relationships, including one with Queen Anne’s chief minister, Robert Harley, and another with his loyal aide, Charles Ford.

To add to this, Swift’s compulsive rudeness, his love of filth, and his neurotic fixation with orifices and bodily functions were constantly getting him in trouble. What other member of the High Church could have penned a poem called Arse Musica, the Benefit of Farting?

Swift obtained special preferences for the Church of Ireland but in spite of his machinations failed to secure a grandiose appointment for himself. He sailed for Ireland to take up the Deanship of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a position he saw as an insult. In Dublin he set about writing anonymous pamphlets, including the Drapier’s Letters, in which he attacked the monopoly of British goods and the debasement of Irish coinage. He became a thorn in the side of the corrupt British establishment he believed had betrayed him, and in doing so became a hero of the Roman Catholics.

In 1726 Swift had his final revenge. In London he secretly arranged for the publication of Gulliver’s Travels, a work which confirmed his genius immediately and forever.

Swift then settled into a less than peaceful old age. He was plagued by peculiar symptoms including deafness and dizziness and his behaviour became erratic. He would run up and down the stairs in the Deanery for exercise, would greet visitors to his door bearing a chamber-pot and was notorious for “knocking on the head every man who came near him and attempting every woman he sees.”

Certified in 1742, he died three years later.

The Man Himself is one of those rare biographies where the subject comes across so vividly you can almost hear their heartbeat rising from its pages. One criticism is that Martin should have included  more anecdotes about Swift and more passages from his letters. His passion for his subject is so great that he does not let Swift speak for himself often enough. Nevertheless, this is an accomplished, erudite and hugely enjoyable biography of one of world literature’s true giants.

The Man Himself is not available in bookshops. A copy can be ordered from the website AuthorsOnline.

The Man Himself: A Life of Jonathan Swift by John Martin

Anglia Publishing

358 PP EURO 24