The Poems of Thomas Sheridan

Book excerpt: "The reputation of Thomas Sheridan has probably suffered from the occasional ridicule of his longtime friend and collaborator Jonathan Swift. Nevertheless, Swift valued Sheridan's wit and company immensely, and the verse-warfares in which the two friends often indulged were not always won by Swift." "Sheridan was not only one of the most memorable Dubliners of the early eighteenth century. Convivial, charming, highspirited, and feckless, he was also a prominent schoolmaster (the best in Europe, according to Swift), cleric, translator, playwright, essayist, and a prolific writer of accomplished light verse. Called Tom Pun-Sibi, or Tom the Punster, because of his droll essay The Art of Punning, he poured forth a seemingly endless stream of punning satires, verse letters to his friends, and satirical observations on the Dublin of his day." "For all of his prolific output, only some of his Swift poems have remained in print, and they are in various editions of Swift's verse. This volume gathers together for the first time Sheridan's complete poetic works, including those published as broadsides or in contemporary journals and those contained in unpublished letters and manuscripts. Of particular interest for such a social poet is the inclusion of poems to and about Sheridan by his many friends and very vocal enemies."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved