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Article: Swift, Jonathan (1667–1745)
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
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SWIFT, JONATHAN (1667
–
1745)
SWIFT, JONATHAN
(1667
–
1745), English satirist, poet, and clergyman. Swift was born in Dublin to English parents, Jonathan and Abigale Erick (or Herrick) Swift. His father had died before Swift's birth, and he was raised by his father's family from the age of three when his mother returned to Leicestershire in England. He attended Kilkenny Grammar School, where William Congreve, the future dramatist, was a fellow pupil, and went on to Trinity College, Dublin, where, because of his infractions of discipline, his degree was conferred on him only by "special grace" in 1686.
Swift went to England in 1689 and became a secretary to the retired ...