A Modest Proposal
Jonathan Swift thought that England's anti-poverty proposals were so outrageously evil that nothing short of an absurd parody of them would suffice. His 'Modest Proposal' offers his own idea for addressing poverty in Ireland, presented with a completely straight face.
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What Hacker News says
- It's good of you to beware immature judgment lest you so be judged.
I didn't have a particular letter in mind but the topic comes up at various places in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, especially in his remarks about sub-creation. I decided to ctrl-f my digital copy and I'll point you to Letter 213 for a direct remark. It's 3 paragraphs, here's the first:
> I do not like giving 'facts' about myself other than 'dry' ones (which anyway are quite as relevant to my books as any other more Juicy details). Not simply for personal reasons; but also because I object to the contemporary trend in criticism, with its excessive interest in the details of the lives of authors and artists. They only distract attention from an author's works (if the works are in fact worthy of attention), and end, as one now often sees, in becoming the main interest. But only one's guardian Angel, or indeed God Himself, could unravel the real relationship between personal facts and an author's works. Not the author himself (though he knows more than any investigator), and certainly not so-called 'psychologists'.
I'm in agreement with Tolkien here.
I wonder if you've ever read A Modest Proposal? If not: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm But if so I still wonder if you can put yourself in the frame of mind of not having read it and not knowing anything about it, and thus recreating an approximation for how you would read such a piece for the first time. What do you make of it? What do you make of Dr. Jonathan Swift? Do you have enough historical knowledge to put yourself in 1729 and interpret it as a person from that era, instead of our modern cynical and irony-poisoned one?
- This is a pretty obtuse perspective. Fiction can be written for the express purpose of achieving insight. Just because something is fictional or humorous doesn't limit that - it can emphasise it. See - A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift.
- Essay: A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. First read it in high school. A revolutionary piece of sardonic wit—especially for a young person after so many literature classes of pure gravitas.
Book(?): And I’m not sure it qualifies but a collection of Rimbaud’s poems and lyrical prose is a sure winner as well. I have difficult time wrapping my mind around the fact that he was so young.
- Trolling is a good way to induce the sort of cognitive dissonance that changes minds. Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' is an exemplar of this.
- A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, mentioned in the article, is well worth reading.
It is a gruesome and utterly deadpan joke.
- Mr Polis stands in the tradition of the Rev. Jonathan Swift specifically his pamphlet entitled A Modest Proposal For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick [1]. Excellent.
