Understanding Satire: Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal and Its Historical Context

1. Background A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

2. Historical Note • End of 1600s abrupt change in literary style • 1660 date of Restoration & end of Oliver Cromwell’s reign • Restoration Charles II (monarchy) – new court French influence • Religion: Catholic Church in decline • No agreement on word of God or accepted moral authority • Social/political basis needed to avert religious strife

3. New rationalism • Limit emotional excess • Attention to forms of language • Purification of language to clear, simple style

4. Language reform • Great age of dictionaries • Purge language of complex metaphors, especially religious • Style move from passionate lyric to more public, restrained, polite forms

5. Rising middle class • Literate with considerable spending power and leisure • Rising concern with public manners + how people should spend leisure time • Development of magazines and journals • Importance of literature shaping public taste

6. Two political groups Whigs Tories • Conservative, Anglican traditionalists • Defended state religion + existing institutions • Liberal, committed to rational reform + dismissing the irrational from religion as much as possible • Improve trade, society, make political system more inclusive

7. dissenters • Not visibly powerful politically • Radical Protestants, Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, etc. • Growing appeal with working class

8. Rise of satire • Form of literature directly concerned with addressing public issues w/strong didactic intent • Use of ridicule, irony, sarcasm, etc., in speech or writing to expose + discourage vice or folly • Particular use of humor for overtly moral purposes

9. Ways to change behavior • Force (threats of punishment) • Deliver moral lectures • Engage in conversation to discover roots of beliefs • Encourage everyone to see target as ridiculous + object of scorn

10. Basis of Satire • Sense of moral outrage must exist in audience as well • Most successful satires focus on lasting characteristics of human experience • Challenge for writer is to be subtle + varied enough keep reader interested in wit while making clear satiric intent • Insensitivity to levels of irony in language causes difficulty in following satire

11. Key satiric terms • Invective: abusive, non-lyrical language aimed at particular target • Curses, name-calling • Least inventive • Diatribe = lengthy invective • Limited and can be boring

12. Key satiric terms • Caricature: exaggerating one feature of target achieve ridiculous effect • In writing reader amused by distorted detail in constantly witty ways

13. Key satiric terms • Burlesque: ridiculous exaggeration in language – makes discrepancy b/w words + situation or character silly • Example: have a king speak like idiot or workman speak like king • Serious situation have characters speak in in appropriate ways • Creates large gap b/w situation/character and style in which they speak or act • Developed into risque performance genre

14. Key satiric terms • Mock heroic: form of burlesque – sets up deliberately disproportionate + witty distance b/w elevated language (to describe action) and foolishness of action • Urges reader see ridiculousness of heroic pretentions of really trivial people • mocks classical stereotypes of heroes: Don Quixote, by Cervantes

15. Key satiric terms • Irony: real meaning different from literal meaning - tends to be ambiguous - becomes satiric when real meaning appears to contradict surface meaning - “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift

16. Key satiric terms • Lampoon: harsh personal attack on recognizable target, focusing on target’s character or appearance • Example: "Nightlight" takes on the "Twilight" series with the story of Belle Goose, a young girl who travels to Switchblade, Oregon, only to meet Edwart Mullen, a vampire computer nerd who isn't into girls.

17. Key satiric terms • Parody: ridicule of a style • Less talented version = silly version of original • More skillful = imitates original well + goes farther to make more ridiculous • Depends on reader knowledge of original • Example: Christmas Afternoon, by Robert Benchley (Done in the Manner, If Not the Spirit, of Dickens)

18. Key satiric terms • Reductio ad absurdum: author agrees enthusiastically w/basic attitudes or assumptions he satirizes + by pushing to logically ridiculous extreme, exposes foolishness of original attitudes • can be dangerous when reader fails to recognize satire or target • Example: A Modest Proposal