Tag Archives: Jonathan Swift

“That is no country for old men.” — William Butler Yeats

Posted on June 13, 2025 by sheila

“I thought we might bring the halves together if we had a national literature that made Ireland beautiful in the memory, and yet had been freed of provincialism by an exacting criticism, a European pose.” — W.B. Yeats William Butler … Continue reading →

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“When I aim at praise, they say I bite.” — Alexander Pope

Posted on May 21, 2025 by sheila

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! -— Alexander Pope, from “Eloisa to Abelard” Alexander Pope was born on this day in 1688. He was so huge … Continue reading →

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2024 Books Read

Posted on December 30, 2024 by sheila

1. Brotherhood of Tyrants: Manic Depression and Absolute Power, by D. Jablow Hershman I was talking with the doctor who helps me manage my bipolar. He saved my life back in 2013. Well, it was a group effort. He knows … Continue reading →

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“I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals.” — Jonathan Swift

Posted on November 30, 2024 by sheila

“When a man of true Genius appears in the World, you may know him by this infallible Sign, that all the Dunces are in Conspiracy against him.” — Jonathan Swift I don’t have much time to read for pleasure these … Continue reading →

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“My thoughts bustle along like a Surinam toad, with little toads sprouting out of back, side, and belly, vegetating while it crawls.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Posted on October 21, 2024 by sheila

He looked at his own Soul with a telescope. What seemed all irregular, he saw and shewed to be beautiful Constellations: and he added to the Consciousness hidden worlds within worlds. –Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notebooks It’s his birthday today. I’ll … Continue reading →

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Books Within Books: Gulliver’s Travels in Jane Eyre

Posted on March 3, 2011 by sheila

I love it when books show up in books, when books play a huge part in a character’s life. Kind of like movies-in-movies. In keeping with the Iranian theme here from last week here’s a post I wrote I about … Continue reading →

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The Books: Six Centuries of Great Poetry: A Stunning Collection of Classic British Poems from Chaucer to Yeats: Jonathan Swift

Posted on September 7, 2010 by sheila

Daily Book Excerpt: Poetry Six Centuries of Great Poetry: A Stunning Collection of Classic British Poems from Chaucer to Yeats, edited by Robert Penn Warren and Albert Erskine “[He is] the most vigorous hater we’ve ever had in our literature.” … Continue reading →

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The Books: “Gulliver’s Travels” (Jonathan Swift)

Posted on June 24, 2008 by sheila

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction: Gulliver’s Travels (Penguin Classics), by Jonathan Swift Edgell Rickword said, of Jonathan Swift: “[He is] the most vigorous hater we’ve ever had in our literature.” He said those words in the 20th century and I … Continue reading →

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“in the cause of Virtue”

Posted on May 30, 2007 by sheila

For writing in the cause of Virtue, and against the fashionable vices, I am lookt upon at present as the most obnoxious person almost in England. — John Gay to Jonathan Swift, 1728 – after “Beggar’s Opera” opened

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The Country of the Houyhnhnms

Posted on February 26, 2007 by sheila

Check this out: a really cool map!! I just finished Gulliver’s Travels – and it is the kind of book where you make maps in your head, to try to get the lay of the land.

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