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The Shabby Man / William Shakespeare
An Irish essayist and satirist from the early 18th century. Orlando meets Swift after she befriends Alexander Pope. Swift represents the accomplished writers and poets whom Orlando idolizes, and the narrator quotes a passage of his prose satire, Gulliver’s Travels, published in 1726. Swift was an important Anglo-Irish satirist, so much so that satire in general is often referred to as “Swiftian.” Orlando is indeed “Swiftian,” which reflects Swift’s influence on Woolf herself. Woolf, using the narrator as a mouthpiece, claims that Swift is “brutal, yet so kind,” and that he “talks baby language to a girl, and will die, can we doubt it, in a madhouse.” The love of Swift’s life, Esther Johnson, whom he called Stella, was several years younger than he was, and he reportedly met her when she was just eight years old. She died young, and Swift suffered her loss deeply. He struggled with mental health issues and had a stroke later in life which left him paralyzed and unable to talk. Swift slowly went insane, and after his death, he willed his fortune to fund a hospital for the mentally ill in Dublin, which is still in operation today. Swift’s struggle with mental illness mirrors Woolf’s own struggle, and he further underscores that fact that while famous writers and poets of the past were no doubt great, they suffered and struggled just like ordinary people.
Jonathan Swift Quotes in Orlando
The Orlando quotes below are all either spoken by Jonathan Swift or refer to Jonathan Swift. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 4
Quotes
It was happy for Orlando, though at first disappointing, that this should be so, for she now began to live much in the company of men of genius, yet after all they were not much different from other people. Addison, Pope, Swift, proved, she found, to be fond of tea. They liked arbours. They collected little bits of coloured glass. They adored grottoes. Rank was not distasteful to them. Praise was delightful. They wore plum-coloured suits one day and grey another. Mr. Swift had a fine malacca cane. Mr. Addison scented his handkerchiefs. Mr. Pope suffered with his head. A piece of gossip did not come amiss. Nor were they without their jealousies. (We are jotting down a few reflections that came to Orlando higgledy-piggledy.) At first, she was annoyed with herself for noticing such trifles, and kept a book in which to write down their memorable sayings, but the page remained empty.
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Jonathan Swift Quotes in Orlando
The Orlando quotes below are all either spoken by Jonathan Swift or refer to Jonathan Swift. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 4
Quotes
It was happy for Orlando, though at first disappointing, that this should be so, for she now began to live much in the company of men of genius, yet after all they were not much different from other people. Addison, Pope, Swift, proved, she found, to be fond of tea. They liked arbours. They collected little bits of coloured glass. They adored grottoes. Rank was not distasteful to them. Praise was delightful. They wore plum-coloured suits one day and grey another. Mr. Swift had a fine malacca cane. Mr. Addison scented his handkerchiefs. Mr. Pope suffered with his head. A piece of gossip did not come amiss. Nor were they without their jealousies. (We are jotting down a few reflections that came to Orlando higgledy-piggledy.) At first, she was annoyed with herself for noticing such trifles, and kept a book in which to write down their memorable sayings, but the page remained empty.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
