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III. Swift and Science
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
While Swift's contribution to most fields of thought has generally been well received, his science is normally considered along with the third book of Gulliver's Travels; and the usual practice is to condemn both. At first it was thought that Swift's criticism of Newtonian science in the third book of Gulliver's Travels was written at short notice, in which case it would be peripheral to the work as a whole. In this event, science would be of little concern to Swift. The important achievement of Professors M. Nicolson and N. M. Mohler was to demonstrate diat Swift's assault on Newton's science was not only premeditated, but carefully executed as well: ‘The sources for nearly all the theories of the Laputans and the Balnibarians (sic) are to be found in the work of Swift's contemporary scientists and particularly in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.’
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References
1 Lamont, C., ‘A Checklist of Critical and Biographical Writings on Jonathan Swift, 1945–65’ in Jeffares, A. N. (ed.), Fair Liberty Was All His Cry (London, 1967), pp. 356–91,CrossRefGoogle Scholar gives an excellent bibliography of Swift scholarship since 1945. The period before 1945 is covered by Teerink, H., A Bibliography of the Writings of Jonathan Swift (Philadelphia, 1963), pp. 405–31,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and by Landa, L. and Tobin, J. E., Jonathan Swift: A List of Critical Studies Published from 1895 to 1945, to Which is Added ‘Remarks on Some Swift Manuscripts in the United States’ by Davis, Herbert (New York, 1945), pp. 17–62.Google ScholarQuintana, R., ‘A Modest Appraisal: Swift Scholarship and Criticism, 1945–65’ in Fair Liberty Was All His Cry, pp. 342–55,Google Scholar gives a very fair summary of the state of the question of interpretation in Swift scholarship. This can be supplemented by Voigt, M., Swift and the Twentieth Century (Detroit, 1964), pp. 29–164,Google Scholar and by Mayhew, G. P., ‘Recent Swift Scholarship’ in Jonathan Swift 1667–1967. A Dublin Tercentenary Tribute (Dublin, 1967), pp. 187–97.Google Scholar
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