The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Swift, Jonathan. “The Lady's Dressing Room.” Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50579/the-ladys-dressing-room.

Note that all parenthetical citations within the guide refer to the lines of the poem from which the quotations are taken.

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin in 1667. At the time, Ireland was under English colonial rule. His father died of syphilis before his birth and his mother returned to England when he was only a toddler, leaving Swift to be raised by an uncle. His family had many literary connections, but Swift struggled to find work due to political strife and personal illness. By the year 1700, he had settled in Ireland and begun his career as both a writer and a politician. He wrote invectives against the government, usually published anonymously. Later in life, he struggled with either mental illness or dementia, which significantly impeded his writing abilities and resulted in personality changes. He was nonetheless celebrated as one of Ireland's greatest thinkers both during his life and after his death at the age of 78. His works are almost all satires, critical of the government and the society in which he lived.

"The Lady's Dressing Room" is just one example of Swift's satiric literary reputation. The poem depicts a man, Strephon, sneaking into his lover Celia's dressing room, only to find himself surrounded by filth and stench. The poem parodies the notion of women's vanity and their attempts to make themselves appear more angelic than they are. At the same time, the poem is also invested in critiquing the expectations placed on women by society (and men in particular) to embody a pure and virginal image.