Satire & Enlightenment: Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

What is satire? What purposes does it serve?

How do Swift’s satirical writings reflect an underlying suspicion regarding humans’ ability to reason & reason itself?

I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is towards individuals: for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Counsellor Such-a-one, and Judge Such-a-one; so with physicians . . . soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth . . .

Letter to Alexander Pope

Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

At last I beheld several animals in a field . . . Their shape was very singular, and deformed . . . Their heads and breasts were covered with thick hair . . . They had beards like goats, and a long ridge of hair down their backs . . . But the rest of their bodies were bare . . . They had no tails, and were accustomed to sit as well as to lie down, and often stood on their hind feet . . . Upon the whole, I never beheld, in all my travels, so disagreeable an animal . . . .

My Horror and Astonishment are not to be described, when I observed, in this abominable Animal, a perfect human Figure . . .

Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

He asked me what were the usual causes [of war] . . . Sometimes the ambition of princes . . . sometimes the corruption of ministers . . . Difference of opinion hath cost millions of lives: for instance, whether whistling be a vice or virtue . . .

When I thought of my Family, my Friends, my Countrymen, or the human Race in general, I considered them as they really were, Yahoos in Shape & Disposition, perhaps a little more civilized and qualified with the Gift of Speech; but making no other Use of Reason . . .

YahooFunction: noun1 capitalized : a member of a race of brutes in Swift's Gulliver's Travels who have the form and all the vices of humans2 : a boorish, crass, or stupid person

“A Modest Proposal” (1729)

1) What is the “modest proposal”?

2) What point is Swift making about relying solely on reason?

3) Is there any connection between Swift’s view of humans here & his portrayal of the Yahoos in Gulliver’s Travels?