During the 18th century, satire quickly came into the forefront of British literature. Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift became the unofficial leaders of this new literary genre by writing their revolutionary works, The Rape of the Lock and A Modest Proposal. Pope satirizes the aristocratic society of England in The Rape of the Lock, with all of its social scandals, trivial dilemmas, materialism and selfish culture. Swift satirizes the treatment of Irish people by the rich British aristocrats in A Modest Proposal. While the two works present satire in very different ways, they both achieve the same goal. Although they use different styles of satire, both The Rape of the Lock and A Modest Proposal use satire to shine light on separate aspects
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Instead of being light hearted and witty, Swift presents a direct bitter attack that abruptly revealed the awful treatment of the Irish by British colonialism. Swift does not use fanciful language and the epic genre to create satire, he instead uses cut-throat sarcasm. He models A Modest Proposal after a traditional economic proposal that he would want to be implemented into British government. Although that style might not seem like it would be fit for a satirical writing, it is Swift’s outlandish and ludicrous proposal that creates the satire. At the time of A Modest Proposal’s publishing in 1729, the British government was taking advantage of Ireland. They were using their colonies as a form of income and were neglecting the welfare of the largely impoverished Irish people. Ireland was in distress and was figuratively being “eaten” by the British government. Because of this, Jonathan Swift wrote this satirical proposal that suggests that the British people will buy children to eat from the Irish. They do this to save the Irish people from their economic despair. He makes this claim in a very formal and straightforward way. “The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders” (Swift 1115). This quote shows that Swift does not use fanciful and elegant language to convey his message but instead Swift uses an economist persona. Other than the elements of Juvenalian satire, Swift doesn 't apply any other literary devices because of the proposal’s academic nature. Unlike Pope’s larger-than-life elements, Swift uses realism to lead the reader to believe that this is a serious proposal and it is meant to be read literally. Of course, anybody with a sane mind would realise that this is
Instead of being light hearted and witty, Swift presents a direct bitter attack that abruptly revealed the awful treatment of the Irish by British colonialism. Swift does not use fanciful language and the epic genre to create satire, he instead uses cut-throat sarcasm. He models A Modest Proposal after a traditional economic proposal that he would want to be implemented into British government. Although that style might not seem like it would be fit for a satirical writing, it is Swift’s outlandish and ludicrous proposal that creates the satire. At the time of A Modest Proposal’s publishing in 1729, the British government was taking advantage of Ireland. They were using their colonies as a form of income and were neglecting the welfare of the largely impoverished Irish people. Ireland was in distress and was figuratively being “eaten” by the British government. Because of this, Jonathan Swift wrote this satirical proposal that suggests that the British people will buy children to eat from the Irish. They do this to save the Irish people from their economic despair. He makes this claim in a very formal and straightforward way. “The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders” (Swift 1115). This quote shows that Swift does not use fanciful and elegant language to convey his message but instead Swift uses an economist persona. Other than the elements of Juvenalian satire, Swift doesn 't apply any other literary devices because of the proposal’s academic nature. Unlike Pope’s larger-than-life elements, Swift uses realism to lead the reader to believe that this is a serious proposal and it is meant to be read literally. Of course, anybody with a sane mind would realise that this is