Unit Five: Political Satire

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Unit Five Political Satire

• Lesson 8
• The Early Jonathan Swift

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Jonathan Swift

• For the most part, other than A Modest Proposal
  and Gullivers Travels, Swift is out of critical
  vogue now.
• Theres not a lot of work being done on him
  (relatively speaking).
• But if Swift only wrote these two pieces, hed be
  considered a genius today.

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Born and Died in Dublin

• Born a posthumous child of his fathers in 1667
• After spending a good part of his life in London,
  he returned to Dublin as the Dean of St.
  Patricks (Anglican)
• Church 1713
• Died in Dublin 1745

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Prolific Writer

• Much of it was political satire, and the subjects
  about which he wrote no longer concern us
• GT is not a childrens book at all--its very
  intricate satire of Swifts day.

5
Brutal Style

• The brutality of Swifts prose is now out of
  vogue.
• Swift had a harsh way of looking at things,
• basically he was a misanthrope.
• But as he pointed out in a letter to Alexander
  Pope,
• Principally I hate and detest that animal called
  man although I heartily love John, Peter,
  Thomas, and so forth"

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Other Traits

• Hes also
• highly scatological
• misogynist
• which I think is less a hatred of women and more
  his general dislike of stupidity and grossness,
  though he probably had some sexual hang-ups, as
  wed say today

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Description of a City Shower

• Representative of his works.
• Scatological
• Poking fun at people
• Sees the darker side
• Hes certainly not a cheerful writer

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A Tale of a Tub

• Swift's least classifiable work.
• It drives readers a little mad.
• And its a perfect example of Swift's devastating
  intellect at work.
• By its end, little seems worth believing in.

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From 1710, the cover of the 5th edition of Tale
of a Tub. This is a very typical pamphlet cover
page.
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From Wikipedia.com

• It is probably his most difficult satire, and
  possibly his most masterful. The Tale is a prose
  parody, which is divided up into sections of
  "digression" and "tale." The "tale" satirizes
  religious excess, while the digressions are a
  series of parodies of contemporary writing in
  literature, politics, theology, Biblical
  exegesis, and medicine. The overarching parody is
  of enthusiasm, pride, and credulity.

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Tales Allegory

• Concerns three brothers.
• Each represents one of the primary branches of
  Christianity in the west.
• Peter, oldest, stands for the Roman Catholic
  Church.
• Jack, youngest, represents the various dissenting
  Protestant churches.
• Martin, middle born, represent the 'via media' of
  the Church of England and Lutherans.

12
More Symbols

• The brothers have inherited three coats
• representing religious practice
• From their father
• representing God
• They have his will to guide them.
• representing the Bible

13
Lack of Unity

• Although the will says that the brothers are
  forbidden from making any changes to their coats,
  they do nearly nothing but alter their coats from
  the start.
• The allegory of the narrative is supposed to be
  an apology for the British church's refusal to
  alter its practice in accordance with Puritan
  demands and its continued resistance to alliance
  with the Roman church.

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Wonderful Analogy

• The change in British society brought about by
  the print revolution was roughly analogous to our
  own experiences with the Internet. Just as now a
  silly person may spend a small amount of money
  and publish silly opinions, so it was then. Just
  as now we are confronted with a staggering array
  of conspiracy theories, "secret" histories, signs
  of the apocalypse, "secrets" of politicians,
  "revelations" of prophets, alarms about household
  products, hoaxes, and outright fraud, so it was
  then. The problem for them, as for us, was
  telling true from false, credible from
  impossible.
• From Wikipedia

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Narrators Persona

• Swift writes in the guise of someone who is
  excited and gullible about all the things the new
  world has to offer.
• The narrator is in love with the modern age and
  feels that he is quite the equal (or superior) of
  any author who ever lived because he, unlike
  them, possesses 'technology' and opinions that
  are just plain newer.

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Naïve and Proud

• Swift seemingly asks the question of what a
  person with no discernment but with a thirst for
  knowledge would be like, and the answer is the
  narrator of Tale of a Tub

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We Need Skeptics!

• Swift was annoyed by people who were so eager to
  possess the newest knowledge that they failed to
  pose skeptical questions.
• If he was not a particular fan of the
  aristocracy, he was a sincere opponent of
  democracy
• which was often viewed then as the sort of "mob
  rule" that led to the worst abuses of the
  Interregnum.

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Many Layers of Satire

• Tub is most consistent in attacking misreading of
  all sorts.
• Both in the narrative sections and the
  digressions, the single human flaw that underlies
  all the follies Swift attacks is over-figurative
  and over-literal reading, both of the Bible and
  of poetry and political prose.

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Novel Work (But Not a Novel!)

• Swift more or less invents prose parody.
• the definition he offers is arguably a parody of
  John Dryden (a cousin) defining "parody" in the
  "Preface to the Satires."
• Prior to Swift, parodies were imitations designed
  to bring mirth, but not primarily in the form of
  mockery.
• The satire is relatively unique in that he offers
  no resolutions. While he ridicules any number of
  foolish habits, he never offers the reader a
  positive set of values to embrace.

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What Follows

• The rest of the lecture is a close line reading
  of the work.
• Just listen carefully! I think its pretty
  self-evident.
• But then I always think that!