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A Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works Book Cover
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A Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works

Jonathan Swift

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 251 reviews
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Ori Fienberg
Author6 books41 followers
May 11, 2007
I originally had two shelves:

books that make me want to have children so I can read to them

and

books that make me want to have children so I can eat them

But really this is the only one that would fall in the latter category.

This is one of the greatest pieces of satire ever written, but seriously, have you ever noticed that babies really do taste better? Think about it. Veal, lamb, kittens. I could go on.
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Paul
2,528 reviews20 followers
April 21, 2017
This collection of Jonathan Swift's satirical works is very witty, very clever and very well-written. You do need a reasonably good knowledge of the times in which he wrote to appreciate much of it but I enjoyed it a great deal and I'm very far from being a historian.

When this is funny, which is a lot, it is very funny indeed. It's also thought-provoking; particularly when he addresses issues which still haven't been resolved to this day. I can't quite bring myself to give it the full five stars, however, because there are passages contained herein which are quite tedious and a bit of a slog to get through. They're very much the exception rather than the rule, though, and this is a great read overall.

I can only imagine what an outcry 'A Modest Proposal' must have caused when originally published. The people I've spoken to about it who didn't know the basic premise have found it quite shocking even today.
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W.D. Clarke
Author3 books336 followers
January 24, 2021
If you are going to buy one book of Swift's in addition to the Travels, this Penguin miscellany gives you the best bang for your buck: superbly annotated and supplemented by both a glossary and a biographical dictionary (all such addenda amounting to 100pp of the 400 page length of this book), it moreover gives an admirable view of the arc of Swift's development as a writer of prose, both serious and satirical. What's more, if you find this volume agreeable to your tastes or interests, the Oxford Major Works largely focuses on other texts, repeating relatively few of the selections herein.

In spite of Swift's Olympian, clear, yet flawless and even (at times) approachable style, and despite his addiction to the periodic sentence, the subject-matter is rooted in its time and place and is thus never easy-going (though the notes do help). You would be well-served, then, in reading this alongside the majesterial, infinitely well-informed biography of the Man by John Stubbs , which never reduces these essays (etc.) to either history or biography, but gives you just the right amount of context to wake them from their centuries-long slumber.

Of particular note are the famous title essay (obviously), the "Bickerstaff Papers" (wherein dude takes on the fake news of the pop astrologer, to hilarious effect), and the "Directions to Servants" (which perceptively satirizes both sides of that Depeche Mode song, "Master and Servant", with granular specificity)—and the excerpts from his letters to his best friend, Esther Johnson, the "Journal to Stella", which I am now going to have to find a used copy of, to read in its entirety.
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Peter
1,128 reviews41 followers
June 28, 2024
Summary: If we are not going to support policies that force America’s billionaires to care about taking care of the American system of government, and of their fellow Americans, then I guess we should go ahead and allow them to own people outright. This step would simply be applying the basic concept of current economic thinking to the situation, as a practical solution. I think the GOP should go ahead and get behind this, if they are really serious about their constant position of more tax cuts for the rich.

What do you do when the state of current politics makes you want to scream? Read this. THIS. Swift issues an Oh Snap that is so deftly, scathingly understated that it rips through all the “because reasons� arguments like rounds of armor piercing bullets through a convention of fleshy NRA delegates.

** Here is my Modest Proposal(circa 2019)

“For preventing the poor, the homeless and the forgotten people of America, from being a burden on the upright taxpayer citizen, and for making them a benefit to the public and to themselves�


It is a deeply saddening and melancholy sight to those who travel through the countryside of this great land or regularly watch the cable news, to see the constant parade of ambulances and overdose victims, homeless persons and drug addicts, refugees and illegal immigrants, often with their children in tow, frequently in rags, covered in sores and tattoos, begging for a handout. These homeless, these addicts, these illegal immigrants, living or imprisoned amid the carnage (as even our President has said) of our once great country, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are reduced to begging, crime, illegal entry, drug dealing or gang membership for want of basic material goods such as, food, shelter and health care and, regretfully, opiates.

Those of us who are sufficiently advanced in years will remember that this problem has been growing from at least the early Reagan administration, or perhaps even Nixon, and has merely increased in depth and scope through multiple reforms of welfare, through the gradual privatization of public schools, through multiple rounds of generous tax cuts, through the deliberate and ever widening liberalization of trade and flow of capital, and the unceasing globalization of the American economy that has been steadily pursued first by the Republican Party and then with increasing enthusiasm by the Democratic Party over the past half century. None of these supposed economic solutions, from the cutting of welfare, to the cuts to public education, to the generous tax breaks for businesses and the wealthy, to the easing of rules to welcome corporate mergers, to the strengthening of creditor rights, none of these purported solutions has seemed to have any ameliorative impact on the problems of poverty, drug abuse, or illegal immigration, all of which have only seemed to increase over this period. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that whoever could, despite all of these failures of policy and blind alleys, discover a fair, effective and reasonable solution that would make these poor people sound, that would, once and for all, meaningfully reduce the number of homeless, destitute, illegal immigrants, addicts and criminals, would be more than well deserving of universal thanks and acclaim as a heroic preserver of our great nation.

But I do not intend to blow my own horn. It is not my intention to make such a proposal merely for approbation and reward. Rather, it would be sufficient reward for me to see the return to first principles, the application once again of time-honored methods, the growth once again of common sense across this great nation, and the rescue of the situation of these forgotten peoples. For my part, I have thought long and hard over this conundrum for many a month and year. I have read volumes of economics and political economy, suffered through mind-numbing historical documentaries, listened with quivering ear to the angry rhetoric of radio commentators and cable news punditry. I have always found these prognosticators to be vastly mistaken in their assumptions, to be devastatingly missing the point, to be shockingly blind to the pure application of their own classical economic principles.

My proposal is no more than a simple return to the basic principle of private ownership. The principle is thus: where an object is owned, its owner has an unimpeded right to control it for his own profit and is, by the immutable rules of classic economics, bound to take care of such property in order to further his own greater interest. When a person owns property exclusively, that person has a desire to take care of that property to ensure that he or she will profit from it, and will endeavor to devote adequate resources to the development of such property in order to reap a profit from it.

The problem (as I see it, and given my education in classical economics, I see it quite clearly, clearer than most) of the indigent, the homeless, illegal immigrants and drug addicts, is that no one is motivated to do anything for them because any amounts spent on such persons do not benefit anyone except those persons themselves. An able bodied adult is clearly capable of supporting and assisting in a wide variety of activities that many a wealthy benefactor would be interested in receiving support and assistance with. Even children from the tender age of at least eight are, properly trained, capable of a wide variety of household chores including trash collection and disposal, simple cleaning, pet and baby care. By nine or ten, they should be able work simple factory machinery, and by age eleven or twelve, as we have seen well demonstrated in Africa, are capable of wielding lethal weapons in an organized fashion, and so could be strong contributors to our national armed forces. The point of course, is not merely to obtain more labor from our population beginning at a younger age. No, it is much broader and, at the same time, much more simple than that. I have it from the Office of Budget and Management, which is on the verge of being eliminated by the current administration, that there are approximately 1.5 million households (including 2.8 million children) living in the United States who have less than $2 per day (before any government payment) on which to survive. These families struggle day to day for ample food, clothing, shelter, health and education. At the same time, the top five hundred thousand households in this great country of ours own approximately one half of the assets that are privately owned. Given this situation, a simple and straightforward application of the laws of supply and demand would be the most efficient and sustainable solution, i.e., to permit the top 1% to own the members of the bottom 10% percentile. But in fact, there is really no need to limit the supply of buyers or sellers in this way, and in the interest of having a true market-based economy, any person should be permitted to sell, and any person should be permitted to buy, not only time and services, but entire lives, if they so choose.

I think you will discover, when you have time to contemplate its genius, that this scheme has very much to recommend it. The trend of the present economy is already well on its way to beggaring large swathes of the self-employed. These people used to be children and spouses of middle managers, local bankers, university and college professors, assembly line workers, equipment and industrial salesmen, machinists, community hospital workers, public service employees, coal miners, teachers, stenographers, cashiers, floorwalkers, and small business employees, that is to say, what we used to refer to as the “middle class�. But the decade-after-decade of corporation mergers and acquisitions, the privatization of public services, and the resulting cost cutting (all in the good cause of “market efficiency� or “consumer savings�), offshoring of production, design and management, mechanization and automation, computerization and data creation, has resulted in the elimination of millions of these jobs that will never return to our shores in our lifetime. These persons now have no health care, no social benefits, and many, no hope. They struggle daily to make ends meet. This is on the one hand.

On the other hand, there are at least half a million, and perhaps several million (and it may be even higher) households that have benefited wonderfully from the very same series of corporate amalgamations and out-sourcing, the very same automation and computerization, the very same privatization of public services, and who have seen their salaries and assets swell, their stocks skyrocket, and the balance of their bank accounts exceed their wildest expectations. These households tend to vie with one another as to who owns the fanciest cars, the fastest airplanes, the largest houses, the grandest estates, who takes the most lavish vacations, and who works the hardest on running the global economy. Why not allow them the additional competitive metric of who has the most and best appointed slaves?

You may be shocked by the word, but please give me a bit more of your patience. Much of modern marketing and politics comes down to a question of words. Is undesirable news good reporting or is it fake news? I think many Americans are flexible enough in mind to agree it can be either. So let us not call this system ‘slavery�, but the ‘human chattel� system. That has a much more pleasant ring to it, much like the phrase ‘alternative fact� has compared to the word ‘lie�.

So let us first consider the myriad advantages to this human chattel system. First, and most importantly, if these millions of persons in poverty become the property of others, the owner will, under the principle of private property, have an incentive to obtain the most from his or her investment. It will logically be in the self-interest of the owner(s) to ensure that their chattel is adequately fed, clothed and sheltered, much as wealthy families take good care of their cars, homes and other possessions, by keeping them in good repair and in respectable appearance. Much like the objects owned by these households, the state of their human chattel will also reflect upon them in the eyes of society.

The subject chattel, who could not previously afford adequate health care, will now be covered by the generous insurance (it would likely be casualty insurance) policy of their owner, who can well afford the tiny additional premium as an add-on to the policy by which they cover their estates, their top-of-the line cars, their art collections or their yachts. The owners would also, presumably, contribute to the adequate education of any offspring of their chattel, in accordance with the needs of the owners and the perceived talents of such offspring.

Of course, we must also consider the advantages for the property owner, the job-creator, if you will, whose interests are foremost. What advantage, besides competitive social one-upmanship, would a wealthy chattel owner obtain from such an arrangement?

First, free labor. The maintenance of a large estate entails a substantial amount of manual labor in order to keep it in good working condition for the master and mistress. Of course, I realize that this labor is not, strictly speaking, free. Food and board must be provided, as well as annual trips to the doctor, and some level of education to the “young-uns.� But compared to the cost of third party contracted labor, these costs will feel practically free. This is an advantage which should not be gainsaid. As we have seen through the years, savings and the potential for savings are nearly as powerful a motivator, even to the wealthy, as increases in income from tax cuts.

Secondly, there is the uplifting feeling of having such resources within one’s unfettered control. After a hard week of meetings and dinners and rounds of golf at Davos or Telluride or Mar-a-Lago, the enjoyment obtained by being able to pull down a long lane of properly pruned trees to a spotless and efficiently run mansion, to be able to put your feet up on a cleanly brushed ottoman and enjoy a cigar and a snifter of the finest, with a footman, a maid and a butler at your beck and call upon the mere tug of a rope is literally priceless. And such feelings of pride and ease need not be confined to the boundaries of one’s own estates. As slavery would be legal throughout the fifty states, one could travel anywhere in American with their ready assistants at hand. No more tiresome lining up for tickets or license plates or any such problems of interaction with the wiles of government bureaucracy or popular restaurants or entertainments. Moreover, travel with a large retinue does not have to be costly. As chattel is merely property, it would not be necessary to purchase airline seats, as such. The master’s property, to the extent not required for on-flight services, could be checked-in in appropriately designed crates, and smaller chattel could be stored in the overhead bin. For short-haul cross country travel, there is a low cost bus system that still runs all the major routes, and luggage is often shipped this way.

Of course, chattel, like other property, will be freely tradeable. The principle of a completely unregulated free market has been the basis for our society since at least the Reagan-Friedman “revolution.� Hence, another advantage to this proposal is that it creates a new market in which anyone can participate. Everyone has a body or a life to sell, and they will be free to sell it. Once they have converted themselves to some wealthy household’s property, they will be assured of protection from the storms and ravages of economic dislocations, of corporate downsizings, outsourcings, and further elimination of public jobs through privatization. They will no longer need to feel anxiety about whether their employment arrangements will end suddenly and they will be left out in the cold. Once they have become the property of a master or mistress, that master or mistress will be responsible for them. If their owner can no longer, for whatever reason, afford, or wish, to support them, such owner will of course be able to sell them to another master or mistress, because, unlike in current employer/employee relationships, they will continue have a value to their owner. This is of course the beauty of the principle of private property, which creates value where there was none before!

There may be up to five million households who can keep two or more slaves, and at least one million households who can afford to keep ten or more slaves, and as the system becomes more popular, the custom of slave ownership should spread even more broadly to a large proportion of the wealthiest American households. Assuming an average of three human chattel per household, this leads to a total human chattel number removed from the population of at least 10 million, and perhaps even 20 million persons, who will be rescued forever from economic hardship. The burden on the government finances will also be lessened by this amount, as these persons can also be removed from the welfare rolls and unemployment benefits, and Medicare and Medicaide.

Now I know there are those bleeding hearts among you, perhaps, more among the sore loser Democrats, than among the winning Republicans, who will tremble at this proposal, and perhaps assert that America already crossed this road over a century ago. But please hear me out. I am not advocating such brutal treatment as was meted out to the African slaves in certain, isolated incidents in the antebellum American South. Families do not necessarily have to be separated. This is will be a matter freely determined by the impartial hand of the unregulated market. The appropriateness of corporeal punishment will also be determined by these same market forces. Certainly no forms of punishment that could be defined as torture would be permitted by the market that we all know and have come to trust like an old friend. Moreover, in order to allay concerns about race, the subject chattel will not be limited by a particular skin color, but will be open to all comers. Any race, creed or ethnicity will be free to sell themselves into slavery, and the freedom of contract will be observed. As that respected philosopher of the Virginian founding fathers, John Locke, asserted, mutual consent will be the basis of contract; breaches will be redressable under civil law. And of course, the question of whether such chattel should have the right to vote is something that should be carefully and thoroughly debated. Both sides should be heard and considered, with the views of the property owners being given full and fair consideration.

With the application of proper principles, I can think of no valid or reasonable objection that could possibly be raised against this proposal, unless it should be urged that, as a result, the number of free Americans will be much lessened in this great land. This is of course true, and I completely acknowledge it, but it was in fact one of the main reasons for my proposal in the first place. I desire the reader to observe that I have designed my proposal with the idea of the best and most appropriate fit with the current culture and values of America, that Shining City on the Hill, the Home of the Brave, that gleaming exception to the rest of the world, truly unique and ever forward-looking. Therefore, let no man talk to me about ridiculous alternatives, such as: returning to a progressive tax system; or restoring the rules restricting monopolies; or providing ample public funding for education; or increasing to any degree public support for health care; or practicing the Golden Rule of treating others as you would be treated; or quitting our petty animosities and factions; or being a bit more careful not to sell our country and consciences for the momentary gratification of the shock value to the other side. Lastly, of requiring the spirit of honesty, industry, and integrity in our elected and appointed government officials, and showing them only that measure of respect that they deem to show to us and to each other. I repeat, let no man waste his breath in talking to me of these or any other similarly ludicrous and laughable policies, until he has some glimpse of hope that there will ever be a hearty and sincere attempt by Republicans working together with Democrats, to actually put any of them into practice.
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Jonathan Ashleigh
Author1 book133 followers
August 14, 2016
This is obviously an incredible satire, which hopes to give some satisfaction to the rich. I recently reread it after reading . In 's parody, the main character parodies 's modest proposal. It is a parody within a parody and the modern twist is displayed well.
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Ann Without An E
42 reviews230 followers
dnf-disliked-could-not-continue
May 31, 2024
It's going to have to be a DNF. I have to say that I found it quite challenging. The old language took some time, but I was willing to try it since I got the book for free. However, I didn't finish the last short story, "A Modest Proposal." I understand that it's satire, but I couldn't stomach the idea of poor toddlers being consumed and the notion that poor people are only valuable as commodities. It made me think about the political views of the time and how they may have contributed to the dire situation of the workhouses.
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Alp Turgut
428 reviews139 followers
April 1, 2019
İnsanlara olan nefretiyle tanınan Jonathan Swift’in denemelerini okuyucuya sunan "Alçakgönüllü Bir Öneri / A Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works", Swift’in entelektüel birikimini ve çeşitli konularla ilgili görüşlerini öğrenebilmek adına güzel bir toplama. Denemelerin genel olarak değerlendirildiğinde bir bütünlük sağlayamadığı eserde en beğendiğim ve tam puan verdiğim bölüm "Çeşitli Konular Üzerine Düşünceler" oldu. Buna ek olarak entelektüel anlamda nitelikli "Basmakalıp bir Deneme", modernle klasik edebiyatı Homeros gibi destansı bir savaşla metaforik olarak kıyasladığı "Kitaplar Arasında Yaşanan Çatışma" ve İngiltere’deki çocuk fazlalığını ironik bir şekilde eleştirdiği "Alçakgönüllü Bir Öneri" bölümlerini de beğendim. Swift'in başyapıtı "Gulliver'in Gezileri"ni okuduktan sonra yazarı daha yakından tanımak için şans verilebilir bir eser. Tam notum: 3,5/5.

01.04.2019
İstanbul, Türkiye

Alp Turgut

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Tempo de Ler
728 reviews98 followers
February 20, 2017
"Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own" (p.2)

Gostei muito destes cinco textos, nos quais Jonathan Swift satiriza, com enorme mestria, o meio social e político que o rodeia, condenando a hipocrisia e o cinismo de ambos com a ferocidade de alguém realmente indignado.

A Modest proposal é, desta compilação, o seu trabalho mais forte. O sentido de humor tão bem aguçado e espirituoso, a forma como pinta com humor algumas das suas ideias mais repulsivas, tornam-no uma referência no género.
"of what use is freedom of thought, if it will not produce freedom of action?" (p.51)
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for-much-deliberation ...
2,687 reviews
December 27, 2009
When one hears 'Swift', Gulliver's Travels usually comes to mind and that was an exceptional work of literature, so I think I'll experience him from a satirical angle.

Actually I ended up listening to this work (having acquired an audio version). Yes I admire Swift's irony in relation to every day situations, though it may seem a bit harsh, the method may at times be the only means of effectivly relating a message.
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sologdin
1,833 reviews816 followers
June 1, 2016
Nutshell: misanthropic rightwinger thinks that he’s funny, but he’s just a dick.

The foregoing conclusions are authorized by the author, who admitted in a letter to fellow douchebag Pope:
I have got materials toward a treatise proving the falsity of that definition animal rationale, and to show that it would be only rationis capax. Upon this great foundation of misanthropy, � the whole building of my Travels is erected. (21)
Several texts in this collection:

A Tale of a Tub--
Lots of derridean outworks here, including the opening dedication to some inbred aristocrat
I should now, in right of a dedicator, give your Lordship a list of your own virtues, and at the same time be very unwilling to offend your modesty; but chiefly I should celebrate your liberality towards men of great parts and small fortunes, and give you broad hints that I mean myself. And I was just going on in the usual method to peruse a hundred or two of dedications, and transcribe an abstract to be applied to your Lordship. (27)
Fourth such outwork explains the title:
seamen have a custom when they meet a Whale to fling him out an empty Tub, by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the Ship. This parable was immediately mythologised; the Whale was interpreted to be Hobbes� “Leviathan,� which tosses and plays with all other schemes of religion and government, whereof a great many are hollow, and dry, and empty, and noisy, and wooden, and given to rotation. This is the Leviathan from whence the terrible wits of our age are said to borrow their weapons. The Ship in danger is easily understood to be its old antitype the commonwealth. (39-40)
Preface otherwise makes sure to avoid going forward “without declaiming, according to custom, against the multitude of writers whereof the whole multitude of writers most reasonably complain� (40). Speaker of the preface notes that in England it’s fine to state openly that “we live in the very dregs of time� (46)—not sure how to take that, as the layers of irony here are numerous—but it would be consistent with the retrograde politics.

The ‘Tale� proper proceeds as an allegory of three guys (Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist) who inherit cloaks (church praxis) from their father’s will (scripture) and go about dicking up their cloaks. This allegory is intermingled with digressions. The Introduction makes plain that the text is concerned with “oratorical machines� (50), from whose company attorneys are apparently excluded (?). We see that the scheme of “oratorical receptacles or machines contains a great mystery, being a type, a sign, an emblem, a shadow, a symbol, bearing analogy to the spacious commonwealth of writers and to those methods by which they must exalt themselves to a certain eminency above the inferior world� (53).

Most interesting is the use of ellipsis to omit materials (as we may have noted regarding ). Author has a ‘hiatus� regarding “faction� (54) and regarding Calvinism (140). (In the “Mechanical Operation� text, infra, he also specifically omits the explanation of “the whole scheme of spiritual mechanism,� i.e., ostensibly the point of the text, because “it was thought neither safe nor convenient to print it� (162).) Best elision, from the famous essay on madness, while working through the important problem of “how it is possible to account for such imaginations as these in particular men, without recourse to my phenomenon of vapours ascending from the lower faculties to overshadow the brain, and there distilling into conceptions� (118-19) (which is substantially identical to Ayn Rand’s epistemology, no?): “There is in mankind a certain […] and this I take to be a clear solution of the matter [!]� (120). So, there it is.

Nice jab at ‘critics,� insofar as we are told:
For it hath been objected that those ancient heroes, famous for their combating so many giants and dragons and robbers, were in their own persons a greater nuisance to mankind than any of the monsters they subdued; and therefore, to render their obligations more complete, when all other vermin were destroyed, should in conscience have concluded with the same justice upon themselves, as Hercules most generously did. (72)
Criticism is thereafter cunningly identified with the intention
to travel through this vast world of writings; to peruse and hunt those monstrous faults bred within them; to drag out the lurking errors, like Cacus from his den; to multiply them like Hydra’s heads; and rake them together like Augeas� dung; or else drive away a sort of dangerous fowl who have a perverse inclination to plunder the best branches of the tree of knowledge, like those Stymphalian birds that ate up the fruit. (73)
So, good to see that he has developed an enlightened attitude toward his interlocutors, for whom, I think, he has just recommended suicide.

On the other hand, text will, at another moment, with perhaps a different speaker, suggest that Homer, “a person not without some abilities, and for ancient of a tolerable genius,� is nevertheless full of “many gross errors� (92).

Anyway, have dwelled overlong on the “Tale,� which is first rate overall. Much of interest that I haven’t mentioned. Suffice to say that one speaker recommends a derridean oblique approach:
get a thorough insight into the index by which the whole book is governed and turned, like fishes by the tail. For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the backdoor. For the arts are all in a flying march, and therefore more easily subdued by attacking from the rear. (104)
“A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit”�
Opens with the suggestion that Mohammed “is known to have borrowed a moiety of his religious system from the Christian faith�(153), and then descends to the bizarre proposition that “there are three general ways of ejaculating the soul� (155). Inter alia, deduces a “history of fanaticism� (167 ff.).

After the ‘Tale,� we have “A Tritical Essay,� “Meditation Upon a Broomstick,� “On Political Lying,� “The Drapier Letters,� and “A Character, Panegyric, and Description of the Legion Club,� about which little need be said. Also included:

“Thoughts on Various Subjects”�
A collection of generally non-satirical gnomics. I fucking hate the gnomic. Here, author outs himself as troglodyte with such items as “Law in a free country is, or ought to be, the determination of the majority of those who have property in land� (193). Uh, fuck you? Also: “Those who are against religion must needs be fools� (195). Whatever? This text also includes the famous ‘confederacy of dunces� line deployed later by Toole.

“An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity in England”�
Builds a distinction between “nominal� and “real� Christianity; he won’t defend the latter, as it has “been for some time wholly laid aside by general consent as utterly inconsistent with our present schemes of wealth and power� (201), which strikes me as a nasty disqualificatory thesis. Seriously, you have a state church and you wrote this to oppose repealing the Test Act, no? (“Nothing can be more notorious than that the Atheists, Deists, Socinians, Antitrinitarians, and other subdivisions of freethinkers, are persons of little zeal for the present ecclesiastical establishment; their declared opinion is for repealing the sacramental test� (210). FFS. FFS!)

“A Modest Proposal”�
Obviously one of the great essays in English literary history. One thing I note now in reading through this time is that the impetus for the eponymous proposal is that “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; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout,� which is the first overt reference to cannibalism in the text (259).

(No “Battle of the Books,� weirdly.)

Recommended for those who think praise was originally a pension paid by the world, readers affected in the head by tentiginous humour, and persons who have no children by which they can propose to get a single penny.
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The Half-blood Reader
1,107 reviews50 followers
dropped
December 23, 2020
College reads: I only read chapters/sections relevant to my studies, hence the dnf (A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burthen to their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public)
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Katherine
71 reviews1 follower
May 8, 2021
I had high hopes for his satirical essays, especially A Modest Proposal, but alas, I am disappointed.

Let’s start with A Modest Proposal; I did a bit of research after reading and found out that this was supposed to “disgust and enrage the reader,� and that’s exactly what it did. Basically, Ireland was deeply in debt and streets were crowded with woman and child beggars. So, Swift proposes a cannibalistic solution: plump the infants and then sell them to men and rich families to eat as a delicate meal, whether it be “stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled.� But what disgusted me the most was the role of the women in this imagined society: a “constant breeder� of children. Even worse, this was repeated at a nauseating frequency. I get that this is not to be taken seriously, but I don’t appreciate this type of satire - it just doesn’t sit right with me. Apparently, the purpose of this essay was mock the rich, blame the Irish government, and shed some light on the status quo. So, I’ll blame my dislike on my oblivion to the history of Ireland.

Other than that, this is a collection of essays written in the 1700s that discusses Christianity and politics while integrating Latin and alluding to famous philosophers. (I didn’t finish 2 and only finished 2 in total, but there were a lot more that I chose not to read). Thanks to my limited knowledge, I was clueless and had difficulty understanding the main ideas (but that's my problem, not the writer's). Maybe I'll revisit this in the future after I learn more about Europe’s history, and hopefully, I’ll appreciate his uniquely satirical way of sending a message.
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Stephanie Wojciakowski
20 reviews
December 26, 2024
Ok I liked it and I’m gonna rank the essays best to worst (sorry to those who don’t care)

1.) A Modest Proposal - obviously the funniest and cleverest one so it makes sense why it’s in the title. I also like how it’s a modest proposal specifically, as opposed to a boastful proposal. I also wouldn’t be boastful if I proposed cannibalism of children though so it makes sense

2.) The Battle of the Books - made me laugh imagining actual books going to battle. reminded me of that scene in beauty and the beast

2.) A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit - I appreciated the main metaphor in this and I did agree with most of the sentiments but maybe I just don’t like reading about religion

3.) A Meditation upon a Broomstick - short and sweet and silly

4.) An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity in England - nothing revolutionary said and did not make me giggle. Again, don’t really enjoy reading essays about religion

Overall this book reminded me of something we’d read in English class and I miss Mr. Aldrich so I enjoyed myself
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Jessica
697 reviews27 followers
November 22, 2008
Swift's satire, A Modest Proposal, was not well-known or well-read in his life. Of course, given the nature of the piece--the desperate need for change in Ireland--lack of recognition was difficult.

I have read and taught this many times. Most students don't understand the depths of the satire or the excellent argument structure presented in this essay.

Swift's ability to develop his argument in the way he has makes the piece an excellent read for anyone looking to understand the many forms of developing argument.
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John Yelverton
4,378 reviews38 followers
October 2, 2011
The modest proposal would have been if someone had asked not to write this horrid thing.
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Ezops
135 reviews1 follower
April 28, 2025
Öyle keskin bi alay ve zekayla yazılmış ki yer yer hiciv mi gerçek mi birbirine karıştırdım. İlk iki deneme favorim olsa da Özellikle alçakgönüllü bir öneri denemesi çok vurucuydu. Boğazımda bir yumruyla okudum.
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Matt
1,124 reviews740 followers
March 5, 2008


"A Modest Proposal" is so fucking ridiculously contemporary that I can't help but be the one to say it for the millionth time. If you think things have gotten too raw and uncivilized in today's age, and that people were more well mannered in the olden days, you are....full O' SHITE!

I'm sure no one reading this actually does think this way but still...I love being able to add this bit of actual, factual info and not feeling the least bit bad about it because history is genteel only to the people who see the past through rose-colored glasses which are dipped in (bull) shit...

I also like that Swift was a great hater of everything...also, unless I'm mistaken, a royalist conservative and a pretty trenchant religious one at that....and yet, and yet, as Yeats was wont to say: "world besotted traveler he/ served the cause of human liberty"

So SNL, the Daily Show, Carlin, Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce et al were 200 years in the making (and that's just talkin' Swift here, mind you)...

Also I remember reading that prominent literary critic of his once remarked that the narrator this book has what he brilliantly refers to as "a nervous hiccup"- he's not being outwardly snotty, there's no punk rock-ishness intended. You can hear it if you listen, its in the last sentence. The narrator's more like an acquiescent bureaucrat sincerely attempting to remedy the situation at hand for the colonial overlords...who happen to be enslaving his own people with exorbitant rents and property rights which leave much to be desired....which is pretty much where I think a satirist is these days.

If you look at the characters or personae your average comedian or satirical talk show host (ahem, Stewart and Colbert, especially, which gives it a different spin entirely) has, its all about being a sort of befuddled, confused, average guy who is trying to make these lumbering, incoherent systems and bizarre situations run smoothly. The technocrats are mad. The comedian is a member of the lower order, too smart and too normal to be from the avant- outside, anxiously clearing his throat and calling the masters of the universe into question using irony, paradox, scatology, and an almost childlike sense of absurdity to show how wrong and possibly evil the powers that be are, how they show themselves to be almost without fail.

It's not that they stand outside the system- it's that they are a part of the madness and therefore have a front row seat to the insanity in high places. Butchering of language (that precious gift), the unnecessary deaths of innocents, baldfaced lies, cynicism to assume that such things are or should be the due matter of course, sinister opportunities resulting in collateral damage and mind-boggling failure and outrageous profits for shady people who everyone already pretty much knows to be shady, deep down, because they are a part of it too.
\

So, therefore, all the proposals are modest. Immodesty wouldn't notice itself without the contrast. Swift lives!
Mehmet
Author2 books454 followers
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January 19, 2022
Severek okuduğum kitapta benim hoşuma giden bazı kısımlar şunlar:

"...Çünkü dalları cennete uzanmış olsa da kökleri yeryüzündedir. Derin tefekküre dalmak etle, kanla yapıalcak iş değildir; etle, kanla girişilen tefekkür deneyimi, doğası gereği gevşer ve maddesel düzeye iner."

"... Gençliğin mahareti keşiftir, yaşlılığınsa yargı gücü; öyle ki ona sunacak daha az şey buldukça yargı gücümüz de gittikçe daha zor beğenir olur: Yaşamın akışı bunu gerektirir. Yaşlandığmızda arkadaşlarımız bizi memnun etmede gittikçe daha çok zorlanırlar, ama aynı zamanda memnun olup olmadığımız da onları gittikçe daha az ilgilendirir. Hiçbir bilge adam genç olmayı dilemez. Başıboş bir akıl yürütme, daha önceki sağlıklı akıl yürütmelerinizin ağırlığını azaltır. İyi davranışların altında yatan itkiler kılı kırk yaran bir incelemeyle gelmez. İyi olsun kötü olsun çoğu eylemin nihai nedeninin insanın kendisine duyduğu sevgi olduğu kabul edilir; ama bazı insanların öz sevgisi onları başkalarını mutlu etmeye iter, başkalarınınkiyse yalnızca kendilerini mutlu etmeye.
Erdemle kötülük arasındaki ayrım budur."

"... Keyfi iktiadr bir prens için en doğal baştan çıkarıcı nesnedir; nasıl ki genç bir adamın şarap ya da kadınlar karşısında, bir yargıcın rüşvet, yaşlı bir adamın cimrilik, bir kadınınsa yüzeysellik karşısında baştan çıkması işten bile değildir."

"... Bir adam kendisiyle benim arama belli bir mesafe koyduğunda, ikimizin de birbirine eşit uzaklıkta olduğumuz fikri beni rahatlatıyor."

"Tüm nehirler denize bağlanır. Xerxex, ordusuna dikkatle bakıp da yüz yıldan kısa bir süre içinde tüm askerlerinin ölmüş olacağını düşününce ağlamış. Anacreon'u öldüren, bir üzüm çekirdeği olmuş; şiddetli hazzın da, tıpkı şiddetli üzüntü gibi, insanı öldürebileceğini biliyoruz. Bu dünyada sabit kalan hiçbir şey yok, iktidarsızlıktan başka; gene de Platon, erdem kendini dünyaya gerçek kıyafetiyle gösterecek olsa, tüm insanların onun karşısında büyüleneceğini düşünüyordu. Ama şimdi, dünyayı yöneten çıkar olduğundan, Jüpiter'in kendisi dahi dünyaya inecek olsa, Danae'ye göründüğü gibi, bir altın yağmuru altında görünmediği sürece hor görülecektir; çünkü bugünlerde güneşin yalnızca yükselişine bakılıyor, batışına değil."

Swift, çok önemli bir adam. Mutlaka okunması gerek, klasikler zaten kişinin okuma sürecinde mutlaka basılması gereken basamaklar.
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J.
225 reviews12 followers
February 14, 2015
'A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick' was published anonymously in 1729. These were bad years in Ireland three failed harvests were followed by poverty and disease. 'A modest proposal... ' lays bare the politics and prejudice of the time. The structure of the pamphlet imitates the pamphlets being published which offered up serious proposals to the crisis.

The shocking suggestion is that the poor Irish should sell their children to the rich like cattle in order to gain financially. "A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout." He discusses the benefits of such commerce to butchers, for the making of gloves for ladies and boots for men. He also suggests that there will be no more domestic violence as women will be valued for child bearing. There were rumours that people indulged in cannibalism but those rumours existed in Edmund Spensers day.

At the time William Petty was surveyor in Ireland and worked for Cromwell, he mapped and measured creditors, what was taken and given to soldiers and the cronies of Cromwell. These statistics were part of a belief in a mathematical solution. The Irish economy was extractive and produce was taken and sold in England.

Swift was Dean of St. Patrick's cathedral a position partly of exile and due to failure in his career. In this work he is emulating his sermons, satirising people who think they can reform and holding forth that people will ever change. He contributed to public arguments about how Ireland was ruled. In the 1720's he objected anonymously via the 'Drapiers letters' to the underhanded winning of a contract to recoin the currency without the consultation of the Anglo Irish community. He became a hero for this intervention. Although Swift denunciates he doesn't necessarily sympathise with the people. I enjoyed this and I encourage visitors to Dublin to visit St Patrick's cathedral.
Nicky
70 reviews6 followers
December 13, 2007
A Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works contains five essays by Swift. A Modest Proposal focuses upon politics, Battle of the Books upon literature and philosophy, and the remaining three address religious belief and practice.

A Modest Proposal is easily the most famous of Swift's essays, and as such most people are aware of its premise. It is incredibly witty, brief, and poignant. A fine satire.

To appreciate Battle of the Books requires a fair amount of understanding regarding ancient and modern philosophy and literature. It casts writings (personified as their writers) in struggle against one another set in a library. But in a broader sense, it can be appreciated as expressing vanity, ingratitude, and disdain by some modern thinkers for ancient thinkers.

Meditation Upon a Broomstick is a very short work drawing analogy between broomstick and man, speaking of the nature and purposes of each.

An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity in England
is a satire against the idea that shortcomings in human nature are religious faults. Even if religion were removed, vices due to human nature would still trouble mankind.

Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit is a satire directed against all religious extremists. Swift refers to Muslims and Protestant Christians of his own age in particular. I can't help but think how relevant Swift remains more than 250 years after his death.
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Mark Bratkowski
65 reviews4 followers
February 26, 2017
This is another book that I read to teach at Ursuline next year. Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is without a doubt one of the most intellectual and humorous pieces of satire ever written. Another satiric essay that I liked was "An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity in England". This was written earlier than "A Modest Proposal" but uses soome of the same devices. Swift's evidence shows how ending Christianity would bring political and economic benefits to England. Of course, his argument is sarcastic and in opposition to his own beliefs; Swift was an ordained Anglican minister.

I wasn't nearly as impressed with the other satirical writings. "The Battle of the Books" is about a battle between books written by ancient and modern writers. I felt left out while I was reading it because I didn't know who the "modern" writers of the 17th and 18th centuries were. The work also wasn't finished and that left me at a loss.

I would like to read Swift's magnum opus, "Guliver's Travels", some day. However, I was disappointed by the overall body of his work in this set of essays. I found him to be highly witty, but he could also get too philosophical and meandering, and I often lost my interest in his writing.
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BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...)
1,411 reviews177 followers
December 15, 2022
The reason for picking up was that I wanted to reread A Modest Proposal, which I had previously read in my copy of and which I still think is a masterpiece and as such probably the best satire I've ever come across.

As a sort of ‘bonus� I had four more of Swift’s satirical writings in this book, each of which I liked. I must add though, that by far the most of his satirical writings require (a lot of) background knowledge into the period they were written in. Should you possess this background knowledge, then please, read this little book, as Swift’s satirical writings are fabulous!

See also the Netherlands & Flanders group, message 100 of their Summer Challenge 2014, for a review in Dutch.
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James Violand
1,247 reviews68 followers
December 24, 2017
Buying a 412 page book for what turns out to be the nine page Proposal, is a waste of money. How fascinated would you be to read excerpts of a private journal recording thoughts on the mundane and on persons you have no knowledge of, nor interest in? Would you rather read copies of private letters? Much of the book displays Swift’s caustic wit, but, unless you are an enthusiast for Irish history, there is so much minutia that a quarter of the volume is given to footnotes! Save your money and find “A Modest Proposal� in another edition.
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Chris
903 reviews109 followers
March 17, 2019
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; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

With this paragraph, around a quarter of the way through a 1729 text, Swift (originally writing anonymously) detonates the bomb that is at the core of A Modest PROPOSAL For preventing the CHILDREN of POOR PEOPLE From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the PUBLICK.

But this, of course, is Swift, and we must never take his writings at their word. When he discusses the main advantages of such a policy for Ireland (such as fewer Catholics, the introduction of a new dish for gentlemen with refined tastes, an added draw for taverns, an income for the 'breeders' and an economic policy to encourage marriage) his purpose is to criticise social attitudes, but as with all satire, outward appearances are outrageous--but also deceptive.

Swift was Anglo-Irish Anglican clergyman, and his position was to be a signpost always to a via media (as characterises the Church of England itself, being somewhere in the middle of a Christian continuum stretching from Dissenter to Roman Catholic). By taking arguments to extremes, as with A Modest Proposal, he exposed what he saw as inherent ridiculousness, but with such po-faced earnestness that it was sometimes hard to know when he was being serious without close reading of the text.

In this slim volume are also included four other works. The Battle of the Books is the longest, and was essentially a discourse on the three strands of Christianity in the west, with the individuals Peter, Martin and Jack standing for Catholicism, Anglicanism and Nonconformism. (As a digression, I wonder if this piece indirectly influenced R M Ballantyne's famous novel The Coral Island, the leads of which were Peterkin, Jack Martin and Ralph, and which itself directly inspired William Golding's characters Piggy, Jack and Ralph in The Lord of the Flies.)

Also here is the very short A Meditation upon a Broomstick, a mock allegory of the human condition perpetrated as a joke upon a Lady Berkeley. This is followed by A Discourse concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit: in this Swift equates spirit with 'enthusiasm', literally the state of being possessed by a god. The manifestation of enthusiasm Swift calls 'ejaculating the spirit, or transporting it beyond the sphere of matter'; to the three expressions of this manifestation--divine prophecy or inspiration, devilish possession, and the product of the imagination or strong emotions--Swift adds 'the mechanical operation of the spirit', which he at first compares to the ass on which Mohammed is said to have travelled to Paradise. (He also has witty words to say about epistolatory conventions, but there is no space, dear reader, to expand on this.)

That only leaves the last of these papers published before 1729, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity in England, which, however dry the subject appears to be from the title, is as knockabout a farce attacking all and sundry as any in this collection. Swift's own footnotes, along with the editor's, are included here, as well as a brief biography by way of introduction.

Even allowing for a three-century gap these pieces have a surprisingly relevant contemporary bite, especially in view of recent political events: the shocking satire of A Modest Proposal throws a light on the downsides of utilitarianism, the dangers of cynical commercialism and the human capacity for self-delusion.
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GiGi
755 reviews4 followers
May 2, 2023
"A full and true account of the battle fought last friday between the ancient and the modern books in saint James's library" ⭐⭐⭐⭐

"A meditation upon a broomstick." ⭐⭐�

"A discourse concerning the mechanical operation of the spirit. In a letter to a friend. A fragment." ⭐⭐

"An argument to prove that abolishing Christianity in England may, as things now stand, be attended with some inconveniences, and perhaps not produce those many good effects proposed thereby." ⭐⭐

"A modest proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burthen to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public." ⭐⭐�
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David Gardtman
61 reviews1 follower
May 18, 2025
Some of it was witty. But some sentences and sidetracks just went on and on that I had no longer any idea what the point of the paragraph even was. "Modest Proposal" and "An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity in England" is more digestible just because the it's clear what swift is even satirizing.

But with "A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operations of the Spirit" it took me more than halfway through to even understand what his argument was.

Finally Battle of the Books was awful. I'm sure some of the jokes/references would make more sense at the time as they refer to contemporary authors, but disregarding that the whole essay is just "then this guy hit this guy, then this guy hit this guy, then this guy hit this guy". If you're gonna make a parody where modern and ancient books battle each other, at least make the battle itself interesting. Then missing some of the references wouldn't matter. As it is, it's just selfmasturbatory drivel where Swift makes famous ancient authors spear comtemporary writers he does not agree with. The only relevant part of the essay is the one page where the spider and bee is compared to ancient and modern literature, everything else is just mouth diarrhea that doesn't add at all to his arguments.
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Ben Murray
31 reviews
October 18, 2023
A modest proposal was very good, but the other satirical works were� not as good. Tough to give an L in the aggregate but he may be a bit of a one hit wonder.
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