David Profumo
Helter Skelter
Jonathan Swift: The Complete Poems
By Pat Rogers (ed)
Penguin 956pp £9.95
John Skelton: The Complete English Poems
By John Scattergood (ed)
Penguin 573pp £6.95
It is an irony Swift himself would have appreciated that the man who resolved at thirty-two ‘Not to be fond of Children, or let them come near me hardly,’ should have become best known as the author of the children's classic, Gulliver’s Travels. But his general image as a poet, if there is one, is nowadays assembled from a handful of notorious verses that typecast him, out of context, as a ‘dirty’ writer – something the plethora of recent books on the poems has done little to replace with any alternative impression, persisting as they do in casting gloom on already obscure areas.
Professor Rogers’ massive edition must, by its sheer size alone, prove that there is more to Swift than catalogues of noisome underwear. It offers about 280 poems in modernised spelling, including a few attributions that differ from Williams’ standard edition of 1937; there is also an excellent ‘Biographical Dictionary’, plus page after page of enlightening notes at the end. What we are not given, due to present Penguin policy, is any critical Introduction, but a textual one that is an admirable mixture of scholarship and common-sense, explaining the morass of bibliographical difficulties concerning the canon. Only in the
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
How to ruin a film - a short guide by @TWHodgkinson:
Thomas W Hodgkinson - There Was No Sorcerer
Thomas W Hodgkinson: There Was No Sorcerer - Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey
literaryreview.co.uk
How to ruin a film - a short guide by @TWHodgkinson:
Thomas W Hodgkinson - There Was No Sorcerer
Thomas W Hodgkinson: There Was No Sorcerer - Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey
literaryreview.co.uk
Give the gift that lasts all year with a subscription to Literary Review. Save up to 35% on the cover price when you visit us at https://literaryreview.co.uk/subscribe and enter the code 'XMAS24'