Swift and song

Abstract

Jonathan Swift was surrounded by songs and singing. From his days as a student in Dublin in the 1680s to his death in the deanery in the Dublin liberties in 1745, street singing sounded in his ears. He was certainly aware of the power of song and wrote several poems, particularly political ones, that seem designed for singing. Yet he also wrote parodies of songs and was, famously, uninterested in music or secular singing—having a particular aversion to opera. This chapter looks at the text of some of Swift’s song-like poems and asks what their performance as songs might have meant to his contemporaries—and, indeed, to him.