SOURCE: “Swift's Strategy in The Battle of the Books,” in Papers on Language and Literature, Vol. 20, No. 4, Fall 1984, pp. 382-89.

In the essay that follows, Ramsey discusses why Jonathan Swift entered the Battle of the Books, the tactics he used, what role his book of the same name played, and how Swift's arguments were indicative of his future philosophical direction.

Swift published The Battle of the Books along with A Tale of a Tub and the Discourse on the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit in 1704, shortly after the death of his patron, Sir William Temple. Temple, who had seen fit to write in defense of the Ancients, had been vigorously attacked in print for his trouble—and for his errors. Swift, then Temple's secretary, stepped in—probably without being asked—to defend his employer by depicting his chief critics William Wotton and Richard Bentley, along with a generous...