PAPER 4: Jonathan Swift

Question 1

Swift - key info

Answer 1

Ango-Irish, essayist/pol pamphleteer. Cleric. Whig, then Tory. Secretary to Sir William Temple (defender of Ancients)

Question 2

Swift - key works

Answer 2

Battle of the books (1697)
Meditation upon a broomstick (1701)
Tale of a tub (1704)
A proposal for the universal use of Irish manufacture (1720)
Drapier's letters (1724)
Gullivers travels (1726)
A modest proposal (1729)

Question 3

Swift - key themes

Answer 3

Augustan SATIRE (anti-Whig). Society, court, aristocracy. Economy, Irish rights. Allegory. Preoccupation with sight because of his eventual blindness.

Question 4

Gullivers travels - key themes

Answer 4

1726. Travel, power/government, perspective/contrast, social structure, culture, knowledge, bodily functions…

Question 5

Gulliver - critics

Answer 5

Hunter - swiftian satire is destructive because it undermines confidence in popular genres (e.g. Travel)
Suarez - use of negative examples invites reader to judge for themselves.

Question 6

Gulliver - quotes part 1

Answer 6

extensive prolegomena surrounding the book - letters from gulliver/printer…
L.s of sight - “conjectured, saw, perceived”
In Lilliput - “I thought it the most prudent method to lie still”
Bodily excrement - “I voided in such a quantity” that the fire was put out.
Alienation of familiar objects: “a globe, half silver” (watch)
“This I leave to the readers imagination” - leaving out some details.
Instead of punshment for lawbreaking, titles for abiding in Lilliput: “prodigious defect of policy” at home.

Question 7

Gullvier part 2 quotes

Answer 7

In brobdingnag - “My health was much impaired by the continual drudgery of entertaining the rabble every hour of the day”
Discussions with king - “you have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator”. Horrified by guns - “terrible engines”

Question 8

Gulliver part 3 quotes

Answer 8

Of the laputians “these people are so taken up with intense speculations” they can’t speak without prompting. Ease of court liaisons because of this - “the mistress and her lover may proceed to the greatest familiarities before his face”
Punishment to people - “letting the island drop directly upon their heads”
Colleges for learning - “the only inconvenience is, that non of these projects are yet brought to perfection” and in the meantime “the whole country lies miserably waste”
Proposals for money - “wit, valour, and politeness were likewise proposed to be heavily taxed”
Seeing past/present/future - “I was chiefly disgusted by modern history… I found how the world had been misled by prostitute writers” (irony…)

Question 9

Gulliver part 4 quotes

Answer 9

Houyhnhms. “I said the thing which was not”
Explaining differences in opinions - “whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh”
Explaining society - “the rich man enjoyed the fruit of the poor man’s labour”; “our young noblemen are bred from childhood in idleness and luxury”; “my master thought it monstrous in us to give the females a different kind of education from the males”
“My principle design was to inform, not to amuse”

Question 10

Tale of a tub - about

Answer 10

1704. “Written for the universal improvement of mankind”. excessive surrounding prolegomena - letters between printers/booksellers…

Question 11

Tale of a tub - key themes

Answer 11

Allegory, religion, satire/criticism of modern conventions, omitting passages… conventions of dedications - “I should now… give your lordship a list of your own virtues”

Question 12

Tale of a tub - key quotes

Answer 12

(8 sections) 3 sons, martin (Luther), peter (catholic) and jack (Calvin)
Mocking gov - “senators who are silent in the house, and loud in the coffee house”
Following trends and ignoring fathers advice book - “obedience was absolutely necessary, and yet, shoulder knots appeared extremely requisite”
Ignoring bible - “lock up their fathers will in a strong box”
Frequent “Digressions” peppering the text in between the story - e.g. “Digression concerning critics” - “every true critic is a hero born”
Peter, upon being challenged: “eat your victuals and leave off your impertinence” (trans substantiation)
Jack and martin leave - and re-do coats: latter “stitches with much caution” former “in three minutes made more dispatch than martin had done in as many hours”
Aeolists - on belching - because “learning puffeth men up” “words are but wind”

Question 13

The battle of the books - key info

Answer 13

written in 1697, published in 1704 as prolegomena to the tale of a tub. Ancients vs moderns in literal battle.

Question 14

Battle of the books - Key themes

Answer 14

Allegory, satire, literary conflict, mock-heroic, extended metaphor. “Damage” to manuscript

Question 15

The battle of the books - key quotes

Answer 15

“SATIRE is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own”
Moderns seeking to move ancients because they want their hill - ancients refuse, moderns try and dig under but made of “rock” i.e. Strong foundations. Analogy of bee and spider - former ancients as it takes from and benefits nature. Moderns supported by “infinite swarms of calones” (pamphlets)
“A malignant deity called criticism” supports moderns - father = ignorance, mother = pride. Symbolism of appearance: “Virgil appeared in shining armour, completely fitted to his body” vs Dryden “his speed was less than his noise”. Aesop dreaming - ass running about sleeping ancients, “trampling and kicking and dunging in their faces”

Question 16

Meditation upon a broomstick - about

Answer 16

1701. Mocking genre of Robert Boyle’s meditations. Microcosmic example of Swift’s ideas - satire, allegory…

Question 17

Meditation - quotes

Answer 17

A broomstick “is an emblem of a tree standing on its head, and pray what is man, but a topsyturvy creature”
“Yet with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer” “sharing deeply all the while in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away”

Question 18

A proposal for the universal use of Irish manufacture… about

Answer 18

1720. Prose, polemical (charged for sedition), following the Declaratory Act (GB had the right to legislate for Ireland). Is against imports, is pro-Irish mercantile interests and promotes popular action.

Question 19

A proposal/Irish manufactures - quotes

Answer 19

Those wearing silk/velvet from abroad “should be deemed and reputed an enemy to the nation”
Says it is a poor tradition where Ireland is viewed as “one of their colonies of outcasts in America”

Question 20

Drapiers letters - about

Answer 20

Prose letter/pamphlets x 4 of 1724. A persona adopted to speak against the introduction of Mr Woods privately minted copper coinage, which would be valueless. Persona = protection for Swift and closer alignment with the Irish people.

Question 21

Drapier’s letters, quotes

Answer 21

1 - “we are at a great distance from the kings court, and have nobody there to solicit for us”
4 - not for a long time has “any kingdom so firmly united in a point of great importance” as now. Questions why “that the people of Ireland is in some state of slavery or dependence different to those of England”, objects to being called a “depending kingdom”

Question 22

A modest proposal - general

Answer 22

1729. Heavily satirical. On how to make children no longer a burden on the country. Cannibalism = metaphor for what England is doing to Ireland (?)

Question 23

A modest proposal - quotes

Answer 23

Children can “very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing” until age 6, so instead should be bred for food: “a young healthy child, well nursed, is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food”
Good for landlords because “this food will be somewhat deer, and therefore very proper for landlords” who have already drained children. Will remove catholic population, poor already “every day dying, and rotting, by cold and famine… as fast as can reasonably be expected”
Mocks ridiculous ideas like “taxing our absentees” or foreign trade…
asks people whether they would prefer to die age 1 or live on with “the impossibility of paying rent without money or trade”

Question 24

Swift - critics

Answer 24

Flynn - Swift and the body: along with Defoe and Milton is “trying to order the demands of the flesh” (in the sense of conflict between mind and matter/bodily impulses aka sex). Depends on the “literary process” to order impulses. Both Swift and Defoe place male protagonists on islands to “secure them from desire”.
Swift invokes “disorderly energies” around women.