In 1739, Jonathan Swift wrote a viciously satirical poem imagining the reaction to his death. His friends are all two-faced hypocrites; everyone's obsessed with their own fame. Literary Britain in the 18th century was just like Twitter: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45272/verses-on-the-death-of-dr-swift-dspd … Let's read it!
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The poem is full of hilarious couplets describing a world of constant envy, here everyone freaks out at the possibility that someone they know has *more followers* than them ...pic.twitter.com/8VusR5BGih
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"What poet would not grieve to see His brethren write as well as he?" The cosiness of the London literary scene -- it was pretty small, everyone knew each other -- feels exactly like the various cohorts on social media like Twitter.pic.twitter.com/6wXCb7hHCW
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Swift cops to his own envy, particularly of the poet Alexander Pope, whose zeugmatic ability to pack wit into heroic couplets was just bonkers great. (Pope would have killed it on Twitter, BTW. 280 characters? Eh, that's for chumps: Many of his best couplets barely cracked 100)pic.twitter.com/BsZxwBrcC4
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Swift has fun imagining all the brutal stuff people would say about him after his death. Apparently the queen had promised him some medals, and never gave 'em to him. Since he was super vain himself, this clearly bugged him, and he gets vengeance in his depiction here ...pic.twitter.com/PUA6Yzl9mA
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"Friends", in this poem, are about a meaningful a connection as "Friends" on Facebook.pic.twitter.com/hWr5KcUh6F
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But the *most* social-media aspect of this poem? It occurs halfway, when Swift imagines an "impartial" person rising to his defense. The entire second half of this 485-line poem is this anonymous person talking about how awesome Swift really was. This is, of course ...pic.twitter.com/FDsroCADWV
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Replying to @pomeranian99
Swift published almost everything -- Tale of the Tub, Gulliver's Travel and of course Modest Proposal -- anonymously or under a pseudonym. Sock puppets, as we'd say now.
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The printing press allowed a dissociation between person writing and their public persona -- Kenner is good on this in The Stoic Comedians.
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Replying to @pomeranian99
It's in the second chapter, the one on Joyce and his predecessors.
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