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From: Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film
Date: 20040701
Author:Mayer, David

In 1704 Jonathan Swift published his satire The Battle of the Books, a mock-epic which pitted enlightened ancient authors against modern critics, pompous interpreters of the ancients and translators, publishers, and other literary and scholarly poseurs. It was depicted as a conflict between those who wrote for the pleasures of writing and other noble motives and those whose ostensible principal purpose in taking up the pen was to earn money - in short, independent gentlemen against professional hacks. Not altogether unique to Swift's era, it is a struggle re-visited in nearly every generation.

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