At Monash, He's 'Around the Next Corner'

REPORTER - publication No. VBG0436 NUMBER 2-84 APRIL4,1984 At Monash, he's 'around the next ( corner' literally' • Portrait ot Jonathan Swift engraved by James Basire. (Monash collection.) For W. B. Yeats, Jonathan Swift, Ihe most radically press the late Herbert Davis' on behalf of the Library in the pointed out by Dr Love in a original writer of Ihe 18th century, was always "just edition of Swift's PoeUcal purchase of other items. description several years ago of around the next corner". Works for Oxford University Professor Probyn says that the embryonic Monash Prds, re-edited with AnlDS the Monash collection now collection, That description has peculiar significance at Monash: the Ross Swift's complete prose contains first editions of Publishing in Swift's early University Library'S rare books room houses one of the world's for OUP, and is editing Swift's almost all of Swift's works and years was a tremendous free finest Swift collections. poetry for a volume in the Ox "a good spread" of other edi for-all, he said. And, on the subject of eventual publication as The ford English Poets series, tions, including some ornately "The situation concerning "world's finest". the collec Monash Swift Collection. Since the original sale of his illustrated ones. the type of publication that tion has its origin with one of Working first on the books collection to Monash, Mr Some of the complications Swift himself preferred the world's finest oboe players. by Swift himself she has Woolley has advised and acted in collecting early Swift were topical. preferably surrep It now consists of some 2100 discovered features of the titious and often only just on volumes in all, including 900 Monash volumes which vary the windy side of the law books by Swift and other significantly from the standard was especially chaotic, H he works about Swift or his time. descriptions. said. ( There are valuable first edi The nucleus of the collection "One can argue that all this tions, rare annotated volumes. was acquired by Monash in its had its positive aspects: that if a letter in Swift's own hand very first year, J961, from the these conditions had not pre and a portrait of him. distinguished Australian-born vailed Swift may not have pub lished at all. There was a sense A recent addition, acquired musician, David Woolley, a in which he loved the jungle by The Friends of the Library friend of Emeritus Professor and was never so happy as which has contributed much to W. A. C. ScoU. first professor when he was stalking in it using the collection's development, of English at Monash and Deputy Vice-Chancellor when the same weapons of deceit, is a 1719 "Map of the Whole mystery, and misrepre World" by the Dutch car he retired in 1981. lOgrapher Herman Moll. The sentation that were being used map was traced to form the Grown fourfold against him." basis for the real and fictional The fact was, however. that much of his work was being places in Swift's Gulliver's Since 1961, the si ze of (he pirated or perpetuated in a Travels, published in 1726. collection has grown fourfold, mutilated form. And, indeed, Two people who work day due largely to the vigilance of work that he had not written to-day with the collection are Dr Harold Love, Reader in was being fathered upon him. Professor Clin Probyn, chair English, Mrs Susan Radvan He offered a canon, if only a man of the English depart sky, Rare Books Librarian, token one, in the two sets of ment, and Dr Maureen Mann, and Mr Adrian Turner, Selec Mis<ellanies (1711 and 1727) Assistant Rare Books tions Librarian. and later in the four volume Librarian. Mr Woolley. who has played Faulkner Works (1735). Professor Probyn has with the Melbourne and published two books and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, • Continued nexl page. numerous articles on Swift. He is principal oboist at the was a postgraduate student at Royal Opera House Covent Detaillrom Herman Moll'. 'Map of the the University of Virginia of Garden. Whole World' (1719), acquired by Irvin Ehrenpreis who has just Those who know him say Monash recenlly. The map was traced published the third and final that music is his bread and but 10 form the basis of real and lictional places in SwIft'. 'Gulliver's Travels' volume in a monumental piece ter but that his passion is (1726). By description, lilliput should of scholarship. Swift: The Swift, For morc than 30 years be located off Australia's east (and uncharted) coast, but was erroneously Man, His Works and the Age. he has collected Swift and cor placed in what is either the outback or Dr Mann is compiling a responded with Swift scholars somewhere near Perth (see iIIus. page detailed descriplive biblio around the world. 2). graphy of the holdings for He has seen through the Madman or the sanest of his time? Today Pac-Man, Space Invaders and die at the lOP like a treeH and "I am Donkey Kong probably sit on shelves what I am". once occupied by Robinson Crusoe, The Discovering who, indeed, was this Pilgrim's Progress and Gulliver's extraordinary man is no mean feat. Travels. Professor Probyn says of Swift: "The Those three books, it has been said, more you study him, the more difficult were most likely to be found in any he becomes" . home, firing the imagination of genera Born in Dublin in 1667, the son of an tion after generation of young readers. Englishman who had settled in Ireland, Jonathan Swift did not write Swift was educated at Trinity College. "Gulliver's Travels" as a children's fan He lert for England in his early 20s, fin tasy, of course, but rather as a skilful ding friendship with writers like Pope and at times savage satire on man's and Gay and public figures like follies and self-interest. Bolingbroke. Gulliver's first two voyages - to from 17)0 until 1714 he played a Lilliput (land of the small people) and to significant part in the Harley-Boling Brobdingnag (land of the giants) - are broke Tory Ministry, under Queen perhaps the best known. Anne, as a pamphleteer - Tory public relations manager. as it were. It is in book four - A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms - that • This hand-colored engraving by Rex Whl.tler of a scene from Swirt is at his darkest. In it he brutally Gulliver'S travels to 8robdlni;lnag (land of the giants) appears in one characterises man as the despicablo of the most ornate editions In the Monash collection. Yahoo. "---It was, says Professor Probyn, HEnglish" and did not have a simple It could only be written by a mad equivalent to being sent to Siberia even relationship with the Irish. He refused to man, so the critics said, which dove if Dublin at that stage was one of see the downtrodden victim of oppres tailed with conventional wisdom that Europe's leading capitals. sion and political bullying as necessarily Swift was indeed deranged when he died Swift had a love-hate relationship virtuous. in 1745 . with the country of his birth. Another complex aspect of Swift's life Swift scholar, Professor Clive Pro Professor Probyn says that Ireland was his relationship with women. byn, professor of English at Monash, • Professor being then the subject colony of He had what the scholar Irvin Ehren says that this misconception still per· Clive Probyn England, existing exclusively for the preis describes as a "motherly-wife" sists. Swift, in fact, suffered from benefit of the mother country, it became substitute in his friend Esther Johnson Menieres Syndrome, a disease of the in Professor Probyn says that while Swift's intention to champion the cause (Stella) and a "daughter-mistress" sub· ner ear only identified in the 19th cen· Swift was a Tory in Church politics of Irish independence and nationhood stitute in Esther Vanhomrigh (Vanessa). tury. It causes, among other complaints, supporting, for example, the Anglo under the Crown. He formed a series of friendships dizziness, vomiting and noises in the Irish Protestant ascendancy in Ireland at It was the period of the "Drapier's throughout his life with younger head. the expense of the Catholic majority Letters". "Gulliver's Travels", and "A women but Professor Probyn says these Such was Swift's pride, says Professor he was Whiggish in other respects - in, Modest Proposal". were almost certainly non-sexual. Probyn. that he would not let himself be say, his attitude towards " democratic" Swift became Ireland's first and "It was not unusual for a cleric in the seen in public after the savage onset of constitutional government. greatest Irish patriot ("news perhaps to Church of England to be celibate at that the disease in the last four or so years of With the collapse of the Tory Ministry the IRA," says Professor Probyn), The stage," he says. his life. He was cared for by a committee in 1714, Swift was "exiled" to Ireland, people celebrated his birthday with bon Later this year Professor Probyn will of guardians. as Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, fires and street processions. travel to Munster for the world's first Among his lasl words were: "I shall Dublin. Yet Swift was culturally and socially Swift Symposium. • From 'ront page Monash's Swift collection " In the same paper, Dr Love Says Dr Mann: "Frequently " The most far· flung I have highlighted the significance o f our copy va ries - sometimes encountered is a book which a Swift collection.

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