This verdict on the passing of a publicly celebrated warrior is fuelled by a bracing contempt
Hate is as fine a motivator of the muse as love, and who better to provide an angry Poem of the week than the Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin the Reverend Dr Jonathan Swift? A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General is indeed a poem so angry it sometimes forgets to be satirical: the moral castigation is paramount, and one admires the poet all the more for getting away with the naked simplicity of it.
Continue reading...