Jonathan Swift

So this is my separate blog on the poet Jonathan Swift, who became Dean of St. Patricks in Dublin. A Modest Proposal is one of many of his works that he is famously remembered for; its full name being 'A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents of Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public'. It is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published in 1729. The essay seems to suggest that the poverty stricken Irish may ease their economic troubles by selling children as food for rich men and women. Here is a quote I found from the proposal:

"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ...”

Where this quote is both humorous and fairly disturbing, Swift is in fact using this extreme way of writing as a metaphor for the can-do spirit of the times that led people to devise a number of illogical schemes that would supposedly solve social and economic ills. Some scholars have argued that Swift's idea was inspired by Tertullian's Apology, which was a satirical attack against early Roman persecution of Christianity. The difference between these two being that Swift was addressing the Anglo-Irish situation in the 1720s, but perhaps he saw some similarities between the two situations. A good similarity voiced by James William Johnson was that they both have central themes of cannibalism and eating babies, and both share the same final argument; "human depravity is such that men will attempt to justify their own cruelty by accusing their victims of being lower than human." Both authors imply an ironic justification by ownership over the subject of sacrificing children - Tertullian whilst attacking pagan parents, and Swift whilst attacking the English mistreatment of the poor Irish.

Overall, Swift's writing relies heavily on metaphorical use and irony, in an attempt to get his point across of the seriousness of poverty related problems in the 18th century. I have to say that Swift's methods, although dramatic, are effective, and help raise issues to people about the economic and social troubles.