![]() ![]() ![]() Young writes : «there is even more of France in him, more of the philosophe than I realized », 0) and ungrudgingly grants Gibbon the command of the superior weapon : irony. Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (*)Ĭan there possibly be such a thing as an English Voltaire ? Can our caustic, grating ironist have a counterpart in a country which has long been known as the ideal ground for the flowering of the far gentler graces of humour ? One notable exception immediately obtrudes itself as one name emerges : Jonathan Swift and yet after reading the work of one of Swift’s contemporaries, Edward Gibbon, and more especially his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, one would no doubt experience pangs of remorse for having rashly stuck the label, not an inglorious after all, on the father of Gulliver.Īuthoritative Gibbonian critics entertain no doubts on that matter. ![]()
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