A Modest Proposal

by Jonathan Swift

Overview

Published as a pamphlet in 1729, this devilishly witty essay by the author of Gulliver's Travels takes the form of an economic treatise. It satirizes England's brutal exploitation of Ireland with an outlandish premise presented with mock seriousness. The notion is that Irish poverty can be corrected with a simple proposal: butcher the children of the Irish poor and sell them as food to the wealthy English.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789360432867
Publisher:	Wordsworth Publishing House
Publication date:	11/27/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	517 KB

About the Author

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was a largely satirical author, journalist and priest born in Ireland. He received his education at Trinity College Dublin and later a Masters degree at Oxford. Swift often visited London and became a politically keen pamphleteer. He also edited a Tory newspaper The Examiner between 1710–14 and was a part of the so-called Scriblerus Club, which included the most outstanding Augustan literati such as Alexander Pope and John Gay. Swift was unable to advance to the position he anticipated within the Church of England as the misinterpretation of his 1704 work A Tale of a Tub came to haunt him stigmatising Swift as a profane author. Consequently, he had to exile back to Ireland. Among his essays, the most notable piece is a later work A Modest Proposal (1729), which stands out for its sharp satire of the Irish upper classes’ ignorance and disregard for the impoverished. The author is known worldwide, however, for his novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726) – a tale widely admired for its nuance and allegorical potency.