Video: The Secret Love of the Author of "Gulliver": How the Romance Denier Jonathan Swift Spun the Heads of Women
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The author of "Gulliver" remained in the memory of descendants a strange and contradictory person: he wrote fairy tales that had no childish meaning, was a priest, but devoted a lot of effort to political struggle, never attached importance to the family and avoided romantic relationships, but ended up in a real love triangle … Biographers are still not sure exactly what kind of relationship he had with two women, each of whom was ready to die for him.
The father of the future writer showed him an extremely unfortunate example of how feelings can become an obstacle in achieving his plans. His father, a judicial official, wanted in his youth to build a career and make a fortune, but marriage for love to a homeless woman did not help, but prevented him from doing so - he had to spend all his energy to feed his wife and child. Swift Sr. died young, and seven months after this sad event, Jonathan was born. The boy was brought up by wealthy relatives and almost never met his mother. So the memories of family life were forever ruined for him.
After high school and Trinitti College, he had to earn a living through the hard work of a parish priest. Even after becoming dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, a famous philosopher and writer, Swift continued to believe that the main thing in life is common sense, clarity of mind and prudence. No romance fit into this scheme, but fate still set a trap for him.
In 1688, a twenty-year-old boy was forced to spend a couple of years in England, where one of his distant relatives offered him a job. Swift served as secretary to wealthy retired diplomat William Temple. On his estate, he first met the love of his life. The girl at that time was only eight years old and, of course, the young man did not even suspect that later she would mean so much to him. Esther Johnson was an orphan and was raised in a wealthy home. Swift became her friend and teacher, he called her Stella - an asterisk.
Twenty years after the death of the writer, his last work was published - "Diary for Stella" - a collection of letters that Swift wrote to his dear friend almost every day throughout his life. Biographers still do not know exactly what relationship the young girl and the writer who became her mentor were in. It is well known that when Swift received a parish in Ireland, he persuaded Stella to move with him. There is no doubt that these two people idolized each other, but they lived in different houses, in the neighborhood, observing all decencies. They did not hold a single meeting without the presence of third parties. Stella's reputation has never been compromised.
A young and beautiful girl, of course, could not endlessly endure such a too platonic relationship. When her depression could no longer be hidden, Swift, fearing a personal meeting, sent a confidant to her "for negotiations". It seems that Stella's ultimatum did work. According to a number of testimonies, the lovers secretly got married, but … the nature of their relationship did not change after that. There is even a version that after the wedding, the lovers learned that they were half-brothers and sisters, and were forced to remain celibate.
However, a few years later, Jonathan Swift, a man who, even for his only love, could not become a real husband, found another heartfelt affection. Around 1707, he met 19-year-old Esther Vanomry, in letters the writer called her Vanessa. This lady was completely different from the modest and quiet Stella. She considered Swift a deity and did not hesitate to express her feelings. She became another mystery for biographers - after all, the famous writer turned out to be a very secretive person. We can only guess what feelings he had for an impulsive person in love. Apparently, he did not reciprocate her feelings, but for some reason she did not lose hope and wrote him sad, tender letters:
Walter Scott, who compiled the biography of the famous writer, spoke about the stormy episode that ended this strange relationship: Vanessa decided to find out the truthfulness of rumors about Swift's secret marriage with Stella and wrote her a frank letter, asking her to directly answer the question - are they married or not.
The writer then returned all her letters to the woman in love and went after his beloved. However, he apparently never found family happiness. Vanessa died three months after this scene, and Stella lived for only five more years. Swift took her death very hard. Despite the fact that his popularity grew, he suffered from an unhealing mental wound, in one of his letters he mentioned "mortal grief, killing his body and soul." The writer died, having survived his only love for 17 years, and most of this time he was seriously ill.
Quite a lot of great writers, embodying great ideas on paper, in reality did not know how to build simple human happiness for themselves. So, Mikhail Prishvin has been waiting for his love almost all his life
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