1742 in Poetry - Events

Events

  • Jonathan Swift suffers what appears to have been a stroke, losing the ability to speak and realizing his worst fears of becoming mentally disabled. ("I shall be like that tree," he once said, "I shall die at the top.") To protect him from unscrupulous hangers on, who had begun to prey on him, Swift's closest companions had him declared of "unsound mind and memory."

Read more about this topic:  1742 In Poetry

Famous quotes containing the word events:

    Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve!
    Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)

    All strange and terrible events are welcome,
    But comforts we despise.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    A curious thing about atrocity stories is that they mirror, instead of the events they purport to describe, the extent of the hatred of the people that tell them.
    Still, you can’t listen unmoved to tales of misery and murder.
    John Dos Passos (1896–1970)