Jonathan Swift and Satire
Upcoming Dates
• January 26th– Research novel finished,
annotated, ready to research topics in the
library
• February 9th—Wuthering Heights Quiz over
complete novel.
• Handouts, handouts, handouts
Horatian Satire
Horace was a Roman
poet and satirist during
the time of Augustus.
Horatian satire is
humorous and
intended to make us
laugh at human
foolishness or
weakness.
Juvenalian Satire
Juvenal was a
Roman poet and
satirist during the
1st century.
Juvenalian satire is
harsh and intended
to make us angry
at human vice
and corruption.
INVECTIVE
• If critics simply abuse, they are writing
INVECTIVE
• From the mouth of a wit, INVECTIVE can be a
piercing tool, but when delivered from a shallower
mind, invective invariably is simple abuse
JEREMIAD
• If critics are sad and morose over the state of
society, they are writing a JEREMIAD
• From Jeremiah bemoaning the state of the
Hebrews to Jonathan Edwards espousing Puritan
beliefs to the Christian Coalition trying to restore
“values” in the country, the JEREMIAD has always
had a popular appeal
• http://tinyurl.com/orgcx9e
• Or
GREECE AND ROME: Classical
Ancestors of Satire
•
•
•
•
•
Aristophanes
Juvenal
Horace
Martial
Petronius
DIRECT SATIRE
• The satiric voice speaks, usually in the first
person, either directly to the reader or to a
character in the satire, called the
ADVERSARIUS
• DIRECT or FORMAL satire is fundamentally of
two types: HORATIAN and JUVENALIAN
INDIRECT SATIRE
• The satire is expressed through a narrative
and the characters or groups who are the butt
are ridiculed not by what is said about them
but by what they themselves say and do
THE NOVEL
• The chief vehicle for satire in the modern
world. CERVANTES, RABELAIS, VOLTAIRE,
SWIFT, FIELDING, AUSTEN, THACKERAY,
TWAIN, HUXLEY, ORWELL, JOSEPH HELLER,
and THOMAS PYNCHEON have made
extended fictional narratives the vehicles for
the satiric treatment of human beings and
their institutions
Jonathan Swift
1667-1745
Biography
• Born in Dublin on November 30, 1667
• Always a kind of displaced person – an
Englishman by blood living among Irishmen; an
Anglican by choice surrounded by Roman
Catholics or, in his own diocese, Presbyterians
• Had an ominous start to life when he was
snatched from his cradle by a loving but
misguided nurse. He remained separated from
his mother for three years
• Studied at Trinity University, Dublin’s great
Protestant university
Contd.
• He worked as the Tory party’s chief
propagandist
• He assumed the editorship of the Tory journal,
The Examiner, with the assignment of justifying
the change in ministry from Whig to Tory, of
preparing the public for the peace that the Tory
party was working for, and of allaying fears that
the Tories would bring back James the
Pretender (James II) and popery
• Installed as Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in
1713
Contd.
• Swift began in 1720 to engage himself more vigorously
in Irish causes, though the character of Irish patriot was
not one he relished. As he wrote to Alexander Pope,
“What I do is owing to perfect rage and resentment, and
the mortifying sight of slavery, folly, and baseness about
me, among which I am forced to live.”
• His task was an exasperating one of rousing a people to
look after its own interests
• The causes he took up and shouldered throughout the
remainder of his productive life were mainly the
improvement of Irish agriculture and manufacture and
the encouragement of home consumption, the protection
of the currency against the threats of devaluation from
English coinages, the protection of the rights of the
clergy, and the care of the poor
Works
• The most famous – and best – of his
nationalistic essays are The Drapier’s Letters
(1724-25) and A Modest Proposal (1729), but
the condition of Ireland must have been a
primary inspiration for his monumental satire on
intellectual, moral, and spiritual subservience Gulliver’s Travels.
• The passage from the letter to Pope, quoted
earlier, might have come from the pen of Gulliver
returned from his travels
A Modest Proposal
A Modest Proposal
A Modest Proposal
• The author assumes the persona of a political
arithmetician (forerunner of the modern
socioeconomic planner) whose attitudes reflect
the very evils he proposes to remedy by his
“project.”
• The full title continues: for Preventing the
Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a
Burthen [sic] to Their Parents, or the Country,
and for Making them Beneficial to the Publick.
Swift’s Satire
• Swift is a Juvenalian satirist
• Juvenal is a Roman satirist who wrote at
end of the first century CE
• Juvenal and Swift are misanthropic
satirists who feel that evil is rooted in
man’s nature and the structure of society
• The misanthropic satirist finds life not
comic but contemptible
A Modest Proposal
• Not a single sentence deviates from the
essay’s bitter tone
• Its persuasive power lies in its irrefutable
indictment of Irish and English indifference
and sheer folly in the face of unspeakable
injustice and misery
• Its immediate attraction is its wildly original
and creative idea
Ironic Persona
• Swift employs a narrator whose views are
obviously antithetical to his own
• Always be careful to separate the artist from his
art
• Swift’s audience is multifold: primarily the
Protestant Ascendancy of which he is a
member; the English legislators, landlords, and
economic apologists; the Irish commoners who,
if we view Swift as an angry preacher, are being
scolded for their sloth, stupidity, and wanton
behavior
Historical Parallel
• An actual plan to solve Ireland’s problems was
suggested by Irish patriot, Colonel Edward Despard
• Despard suggested that he could solve the country’s
problems through a separation of the sexes
• Swift satirically proposed that the Irish institute a system
of regulated cannibalism
• Despard very seriously proposed racial suicide, which,
had it been instituted, would have eliminated the entire
Irish population in a few short generations
• In Colonel Despard’s suggestion, what had been ironic in
Swift became theoretical truth, for it was seriously
proposed
T.R. Malthus
• In 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote:
The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to
produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some
shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active
and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great
army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But
should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics,
pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their
thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete,
gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow
levels the population with the food of the world.
—Malthus T.R. 1798. An essay on the principle of population. Chapter
VII
• Cruel way of thinking about population; wrote this as a reaction to
the situation in Ireland, the satire of Swift, and Despard’s
suggestions. His mathematical and logical essay was heartless yet
accurate. He suggested that the population would naturally die off.
Read and Annotate Individually
• “A Description of the Morning”
• “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed”
• “Cassinus and Peter”
• Look for elements of: satire, restoration,
poetry, Swift v. other “age of reason”
sentiments.
• Summarize every 10 lines or so.
• Finish for homework. Bring annotated on
Block Day