The Reception of Jonathan Swift in Europe

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Description

Jonathan Swift has had a profound impact on almost all the national literatures of Continental Europe. The celebrated author of acknowledged masterpieces like A Tale of a Tub (1704), Gulliver's Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729), the Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin, was courted by innumerable translators, adaptors, and retellers, admired and challenged by shoals of critics, and creatively imitated by both novelists and playwrights, not only in Central Europe (Germany and Switzerland) but also in its northern (Denmark and Sweden) and southern (Italy, Spain, and Portugal) outposts, as well as its eastern (Poland and Russia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria) and Western parts - from the beginning of the 18th century to the present day.

Reviews

A worthy concept. -- Adam Rounce, SHARP
This book is genuinely impressive as an index of the speed and extent to which Swift's reputation spread throughout his career and especially after his death...a remarkably valuable book indeed. -- Robert Mahony, Irish Studies Review
This is an important pioneering work... The extensive bibliography, which minutely documents the translations, adaptations and critical articles in the various countries, is as praiseworthy as the wide-ranging and helpful Timeline. The Reception of Jonathan Swift in Europe represents an important and competent reference work for all future research on Swift on the European continent. -- Ralf Haekel, Das Achtzehntes Jahrhundert (The Eighteenth Century)
It is an indispensable reference text not only for reception study, but also for the many insights of European scholars who have discovered unexpected translations of Gulliver's Travels and who have mined early encyclopedias, correspondences, and journals for commentary on Swift as a man, author, Irish patriot, husband, lover... A concise overview by Mr. Real and an illuminating Timeline... it is a volume that one goes to with a specific interest. -- Manuel Schonhorn * The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats *
Reference & Research Book News, August 2006 -- mention
Book review in - Etudes Irlandaises, Printemps 20065, No. 31.1 * Etudes Irlandaises *

Author Bio

Hermann J. Real is Professor of English at the Westflische Wilhelms-Universitt, Mnster, and Director of the Ehrenpreis Centre for Swift Studies.