The Works of Dryden and Swift

Paper Summary:

The neo-classical age in which both John Dryden and Jonathan Swift penned their most noteworthy prose is often also called "The Age of Reason." However, although this valorization of reason and rationality may be a fair characterization of much of the Age of Human Enlightenment, Dryden and Swift do not deploy nor valorize reason in the same fashion. This paper shows that, for Dryden, reason is the key to humanity's connection with the Divine and political freedom. In comparison, it shows that, in Swift's social and religious satires, human confidence in its rationality is just as absurd as overconfidence in human religious, political, and social institutions to create just and fair societies.

From the Paper:

"Again, reason is the highest and best form of creation, and the parallel political figures satirized and defamed within the poem are those who are irrational and bad, rather than irrational and good. Dryden has faith in the concrete actions of God, where, "Heav'n punishes the bad, and proves the best." (44) In the Biblical account of King David the poet dramatizes in the poem, the justice of God is rational, and thus good, as opposed to the irrational modes humans deploy on occasion to understand God, and the irrational and lustful actions of some Biblical figures. Ultimately, in the last sentence of the poem, David is restored to the throne because he is "God-like" in his goodness.?"

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