Language at Work in Jonathan Swift NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 098 26328 7 - Julie Alexandra Bishop A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of English Literary and Linguistic Studies, University of Newcastle, December 1998. Julie Alexandra Bishop Ph.D., December 1998 Language at Work in Jonathan Swift Language is not a simple bridge from thought to meaning: it has a constitutive function of its own, and its effects should be considered along with the ideas it conveys. The language of Jonathan Swift illustrates this point exactly, because of its mode of operation. In the Swiffian text language is always at work; involved in processes of questioning and reshaping its contents, and our reading of them. Swift's writing enacts, as much as it states, and the reader must be attentive to this process, if the full impact of the texts is to be measured. My project in this thesis is to analyse how language operates in the major works, and the outcome of its activity. In each chapter, I consider how relevant seventeenth- and eighteenth-century ideas of language impact on, and are affected by, Swift's language; as well as his amenability to current ideas in theories of language. First, seventeenth-century attempts to reform and purge language are measured against Swift's handful of explicit statements on the subject; and although there are points of convergence, I conclude that it is more productive to study Swift's less conventional experiments with language than to assemble a fitful philosophy from a few comments. The remaining chapters engage in this project. I assess A Tale of a Tub in relation to ideas of 'the book'—an opportunity to consider the complex interactions between authors, texts, and readers from the vantage point of an ideal of certainty and totality. The poetry is measured against the Augustan separation of 'sound' from 'sense', which founders when confronted with Swift's contemplation of the poetic object through excessive concentration on the body and its products. And Gulliver 's Travels represents an engagement with issues of fictionality and context, and how these affect the dispensation of meaning. Throughout these discussions, my intention is to establish that Swift's writing survives, and its future is assured, because of its interactive, interrogatory, self- reflective nature. Contents Acknowledgements 4 Abbreviations Used in the Text 5 Introduction 6 1: The Seventeenth Century World of Language 27 2: Writing, Reading, and the Book: A Tale of a Tub 68 3: Poetry, Language, and the Body 127 4: Gulliver's Languages 173 Conclusion 222 Bibliography 226 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people for their advice, support, and encouragement during the production of this thesis: Rachel Carroll, Robert Law, Katherine Mapp, Michael Pincombe, Michael Rossington, Andrew Stott, Andrea Wakefield, the staff of the Robinson Library, University of Newcastle, and the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds. I will remember Stephen Copley for his wise and generous advice, his humour, and his friendship. I am grateful to Tom Cain for his assistance during the later stages of the process, and to my supervisor, Ken Robinson, for his unstinting help in developing my ideas, and encouraging reflection and discussion. I owe a special debt of thanks to Nigel Mapp, without whose esteem, friendship, and practical and intellectual input, this work would not have come to fruition. 4 Abbreviations Used in the Text C The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, ed. Harold Williams, 5 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963-1965. P The Poems of Jonathan Swift, ed. Harold Williams, 2nd edn, 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958. PW The Prose Works ofJonathan Swift, ed. Herbert Davis et a!., 14 vols. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1939-68. TT A Tale of a Tub, To which is added the Battle of the Books and the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit, ed. A. C. Guthkelch and D. Nichol Smith, 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958. Ehrenpreis Irvin Ehrenpreis. Swift: The Man, His Works, The Age, 3 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962-83. Introduction Whoever is a Master of Language, and hath a Mind full of Ideas, will be apt in speaking to hesitate upon the Choice of both. Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects (PW, IV: 244) The language of Jonathan Swift presents a unique challenge to its readers. Although his prose style is lucid and often spare, and his poetry direct and fluent, his words always express more than simple meaning. They are charged with dimensions and effects that I do not fmd in other writers of the same period, whether in prose or verse. This thesis addresses the special qualities of Swift's language, and tries to determine, in various texts, the components of his singularity. The most economical means I have of describing Swift's language is that it is always at work. There is never a simple phrase or sentence in Swift because each one is constantly asking questions, seeking direction, as regards both its subject matter and itself. While other writers of the period may share this characteristic in some respects, in Swift it governs every movement and observation in his texts. Before considering the meaning of what he writes, we have to consider the way he writes, and the influence of his language—the difference from other writers is that he makes this the ground or constituency of his work; and it is not simply a case of mastering this aspect of his discourse and then moving on to the prize of recuperation. Language never 6 stops work in Swift, and the reader cannot either. Each discovery or observation must be referred to the other facets of the text. Swift's attitude to his writing is filled with contradiction. Unlike Pope, who finds the reward of a career in it, Swift is largely a reactive writer, producing political pamphlets and occasional satires as easily as he produces more general works. There is not the same sense of project behind Gulliver '5 Travels as there is behind The Dunciad, although each is seen as the culmination of its author's output. And, as the 'Thoughts on Various Subjects' show, Swift exhibits a harsh tone of censorship, both of himself and of others. A writer who seems hesitant to commit himself to words is bound to produce a complex, self-interrogatory language. I study this language in the major areas of his work; the early prose narrative A Tale of a Tub, the poems, and the fictional work Gulliver 's Travels. Each of these sees language at work in different ways. In the Tale, effusiveness, hyperbole, and narratorial slippage produce a radically unstable text, which unseats certainty, threatens madness, and undermines the power of words to work more thoroughly than any of Swift's other works. It is a text that arises from other aspects of Swift yet is demonstrably unlike them. The poems pose questions about the representation of the human subject, often in a physical, even repugnant manner. They are concerned with the power of language to convey life, and with the particular restrictiveness yet allusiveness of poetic language. Gulliver 's Travels dwells on the fictionality of language, and is particularly receptive to the controlling power of textuality, with its 7 frames of narrative and its summoning of discourses like travel writing. Within these, it debates the use of language in society, describing the mundane by way of the fantastic. In all the works, language is central, not merely another theme to be studied. This is what gives them their sophistication, and their currency for today. Some historical groundwork is needed, however, for Swift's focus to make sense. I discuss Restoration and eighteenth-century attitudes towards language in the first chapter, as these have a relevance to Swift's modes of writing. The period in question assumes that the individual should be able to exercise control over language, to effect efficient and harmonious communication with others. It is characterised by pride and censoriousness; claiming, in universal language schemes and other projects, that it can right language, whilst ruthlessly castigating its wrongs. Swift subscribes to an extent to this philosophy—works like A Proposal for Correcting the English Tongue and A Letter to a Young Gentleman lately entered into Holy Orders abound in stern advice and commonsense didacticism. But if we see the guiding force behind Swift's writing as language at work, then these positions must yield to that. In themselves, they are pieces produced to answer a particular occasion or stake out a position. Their political motives must be acknowledged. In the larger context, they are outweighed by those works of Swift which do not openly incite or provoke, yet which are about language nonetheless. Those texts which have most to say about the actual status and progress of language do it by enactment, not statement. The most fruitful study of Swift's language must be immanent, not extrinsic, since this respects the construction of his texts. As must be expected from so wary a writer, certainty and fmitude are not assumed; they must either be extorted from the 8 text by partial reading, or foregone in favour of a more rounded discussion of language. This second option is the one I pursue. Recently, critics have become aware of this fundamental aspect of Swift, in response to criticism's increased self-questioning, and linguistic preoccupations. I will consider some of the material concerning Swift next. In general, my thesis is indebted to ideas and movements in modern literary theory, as befits any present study that centres on language. Some critics and schools of thought are interwoven into my argument.