Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Dublin's Literary Life
Dublin in the 1700s, grown rich from a lucrative cloth trade, was one of Europe's
most cultured and sophisticated cities. The buildings were decorated in the Geor-
gian style still visible today, and the city's Protestant elite shuttled between here
andLondon,bridgingtheAnglo-Irishculturalgap.JonathanSwift(1667-1745)was
the era's greatest Anglo-Irish writer—a brilliant satirist and author of
Gulliver's
Travels
. He was also dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral (1713-1745) and one of the
city's eminent citizens.
Around the turn of the 20th century, Dublin produced some of the world's great
modern writers. Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was creator of
Dracula
. Oscar Wilde
(1854-1900) penned
The Picture of Dorian Gray
and a clutch of fine plays. Ge-
orgeBernard Shaw(1856-1950)wrote
Pygmalion
,
Major Barbara
,
Man and Super-
man
, and a host of other dramas. William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was a prolific
poet and playwright on Irish themes. And James Joyce (1882-1941) whipped up a
