A Modest Proposal
A satirical essay by Jonathan Swift included in the 1963 Gateway to the Great Books collection.
A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly known simply as A Modest Proposal, is a satirical essay from 1729 by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift. The work is written from the perspective of a fictional narrator who suggests that Ireland’s economic troubles could be solved if the poor sold their children as food to the wealthy. The essay begins by detailing the dire poverty of Ireland’s poor, then proposes this shocking solution, complete with methods for preparing the children as dishes and calculations of the financial benefits. Swift concludes by indirectly stating his actual desired reforms through a rhetorical device, including taxing absentee landlords, promoting Irish-made goods, and improving tenant treatment. The essay is considered a prime example of Juvenalian satire and sustained irony in English literature. Its shock value comes partly from the contrast between the initial description of suffering and the narrator’s calm suggestion that a healthy year-old child makes a delicious meal. Swift lampoons the social engineering ideas of figures like William Petty and Francis Bacon, appealing to dubious authorities such as a supposed American acquaintance and the notorious George Psalmanazar. Academics have debated Swift’s targets for centuries, with interpretations ranging from criticism of mercantilism and regressive Irish tax laws to the dehumanizing attitudes of the upper class. From the mid-20th century, scholars have also examined Swift’s own often hostile views toward the Irish poor, complicating the essay’s simple reading as satire. The phrase “a modest proposal” has since become a standard allusion in English for deadpan satire.
- author
- Jonathan Swift
- author_nationality
- Anglo-Irish
- author_occupation
- Writer and clergyman
- genre
- Satirical essay
Lore & Background
Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country' appears in Volume 7 of Gateway to the Great Books. This volume also includes works by Francis Bacon, David Hume, Plutarch, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Ruskin, William James, Arthur Schopenhauer, Michael Faraday, Edmund Burke, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. (Note: Dante, John C. Calhoun, Carl von Clausewitz, and Thomas Robert Malthus appear in Volume 10 of the set, not Volume 7.) The Gateway set was designed as an introduction to the Great Books of the Western World, published in 1952 by the same editors. The set included selections of short stories, plays, essays, letters, and extracts from longer works by more than one hundred authors. The selections were generally shorter and in some ways simpler than the full-length books included in Great Books of the Western World.
Reader's Guide
In the Gateway to the Great Books set, Swift's essay is grouped with other nonfiction works in Volume 7, which focuses on 'Man and Society II'. The volume includes a range of essays and documents addressing social and political themes. The Gateway set included an index similar to the Great Books' Syntopicon, along with reading plans of increasing difficulty. Hutchins wrote an introduction explaining the relevance of categories including 'Man and Society'. The set contained biographical notes on authors and editorial introductions to selections, which were generally not included in the Great Books. The Gateway volumes were single-column with large, readable type. Although the editors maintained that many selections were appropriate to readers as young as seventh-grade students, the set included material challenging for the most experienced reader.
Did You Know?
- Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' is included in Volume 7 of the Gateway to the Great Books set, published in 1963.
- The Gateway set was edited by Mortimer Adler and Robert Maynard Hutchins, with Clifton Fadiman as associate editor.
- Volume 7 includes works by Francis Bacon, David Hume, Plutarch, Voltaire, and Immanuel Kant, among others.
- The Gateway set was designed as an introduction to the Great Books of the Western World, published in 1952.
- The set included an index similar to the Great Books' Syntopicon, along with reading plans of increasing difficulty.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is A Modest Proposal?
It is a satirical essay by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift. Within the Gateway to the Great Books collection, it is catalogued in Volume 7 under the heading "Man and Society II."
Who is the author of A Modest Proposal?
Jonathan Swift, an Anglo-Irish writer who also worked as a clergyman, penned this satirical piece. His name appears in Volume 7 of the 1963 Gateway set alongside several of his other essays.
Where exactly does A Modest Proposal sit in the Gateway to the Great Books?
It is listed in Volume 7, under the section "Man and Society II." That volume was part of the 1963 Encyclopædia Britannica publication, with Mortimer Adler and Robert Maynard Hutchins serving as editors and Clifton Fadiman as associate editor.
What other Swift pieces share the same section?
"Resolutions when I Come to Be Old," "An Essay on Modern Education," and "A Meditation upon a Broomstick" are also listed alongside A Modest Proposal in Volume 7. All four fall under the "Man and Society II" grouping.
Why does A Modest Proposal matter to readers of the Gateway set?
It serves as Swift's sharp satirical take on social and political questions, which is precisely the theme of the "Man and Society" section it anchors. The essay was included in the 1963 Encyclopædia Britannica compilation as a representative work of Swift's writing.
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