A Modest Proposal and Other Stories

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First published anonymously in 1729, ‘A Modest Proposal and Other Stories’ is a Juvenalian satirical essay by Jonathan Swift, an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet, and Anglican cleric. Swift is assumably the greatest prose satirist in the English language and is less well known for his poetry.

Swift points out that disadvantaged Irish might ease their economic problems by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. This overstatement satirizes heartless attitudes towards the poor, as well as Irish policy in general.

This essay is greatly held to be one of the most remarkable examples of sustained irony in the history of the English language. Much of its scare value emanates from the fact that the first part of the essay explains the difficulty of famished beggars in Ireland so the reader is spontaneous at the surprise by Swift’s solution coming ahead in the other half.