Abstract
Readers have always viewed Cadenus and Uinessa as an uncomfortable poem.
Much of the unease surrounding the text, even now, concerns the ten-line passage in which the speaker ever so coyly hints at the sexual union of Swift and Esther Vanhomrigh: "But what Success Uinessa met, / Is to the World a Secret yet." Lord Orrery, among others, interpreted this as an attack on Esther's honour, whereas more recent critics have dismissed it as a non-conclusion. This essay revisits the textual, critical, and emotional issues long associated with the passage. In particular, it suggests that Swift attempts to deconstruct the inefficacy of conventional love-language and, in its place, outlines a fortifed rhetoric of friendship.
Much of the unease surrounding the text, even now, concerns the ten-line passage in which the speaker ever so coyly hints at the sexual union of Swift and Esther Vanhomrigh: "But what Success Uinessa met, / Is to the World a Secret yet." Lord Orrery, among others, interpreted this as an attack on Esther's honour, whereas more recent critics have dismissed it as a non-conclusion. This essay revisits the textual, critical, and emotional issues long associated with the passage. In particular, it suggests that Swift attempts to deconstruct the inefficacy of conventional love-language and, in its place, outlines a fortifed rhetoric of friendship.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Reading Swift |
| Subtitle of host publication | Papers from the Sixth Münster Symposium on Swift |
| Editors | Kirsten Juhas, Hermann J. Real, Sandra Simon |
| Place of Publication | Munich |
| Publisher | William Fink |
| Pages | 401-416 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9783770554300 |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2013 |