The converting imagination

By illuminating Jonathan Swift's fascination with language, Marilyn Francus shows how the linguistic questions posed by his work are at the forefront of twentieth-century literary criticism: What constitutes meaning in language? How do people respond to language? Who has (or should have) authority over language? Is linguistic value synonymous with literary value? The Converting Imagination starts with a detailed analysis of Swift's linguistic education, which straddled a radical transition in linguistic thought, and its effect on his prose. This compelling beginning includes surprising historical information about the teaching and learning of linguistics and language theory in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Swift's academic studies reflected the traditional universalist view that sought an Adamic language to reverse the fragmentation of Babel and achieve epistemological unity. But Swift was also exposed to the contemporary linguistics of the scientific societies and of John Locke, who argued that the assignment of linguistic meaning is arbitrary and subjective, capturing an individual's understanding at a particular instant. These competing theories help explain Swift's