Swift and Science: The Satire, Politics and Theology of Natural Knowledge, 1690-1730

by Gregory Lynall

It is often thought that Jonathan Swift was vehemently opposed to the new science that heralded the beginning of the modern age, but this book interrogates that assumption, bringing new perspectives to his most famous works, and making a case for the intellectual importance of some of his more neglected poems and prose satires. Lynall's study traces the theological, political, and socio-cultural resonances of scientific knowledge in the early eighteenth century, and considers what they can reveal about the growth of Swift's imagination. Taking us to a universe made from clothes, to a place where flowers can talk and men are only trees turned upside down, to an island that hovers high in the clouds, and to a library where a spider predicts how the world will end, the book shows how satire can be an active and unique participant in cultural debates about the methods and purposes of scientific enquiry.

222 pages, ebook

First published May 18, 2012