"... The book seems calculated to live at least as long as our language and our taste admit no great alterations ..." In the "Apology" for his famous satire "A Tale of a Tub", Jonathan Swift hints at one of the main problems inherent with literature. [1] The cause of this problem lies, slightly paradoxical, in one of its greatest qualities: Literature lasts. Once written, texts very often outlive their authors. As long as the language of following generations does not deviate too much from that employed in the lifetime of an author, his works will remain readable for generations to come. Mere readability of a text, however, does not automatically grant lasting appeal. In order to fully comprehend, and appreciate, a given text, the reader needs to relate, or "contextualise", it to his own set of beliefs, values, and background knowledge - which may be very different from the author's.[2]
Consequently, a subject of vital importance to an author of a given period might seem uninteresting when being read about several hundred years later. Much in the same way, stylistic devices such as allusions, metaphors and similes, date and may, over time, even be rendered incomprehensible. It is this phenomenon Swift implies with his mentioning the importance of contemporary "taste" for literary value. Since satire is an art form particularly tightly interwoven with the Zeitgeist, it seems all the more vulnerable to the problems of ageing. Is satire, with all its sharp commentary on contemporary folly, vice and evil, too rooted in its time to be of lasting interest or value? In the following essay, this question will be discussed with reference to two very different satiric works by Jonathan Swift, which where written in the heyday of satiric writing, the Augustan period. The texts referred to are his poem "The Lady's Dressing Room" (1730) and the "Modest Proposal" (1729)[3]
The differences between the "Modern Age" (in this essay, the 1990s) and the Augustan age are manifold and become apparent in a brief comparison of the Augustan and the current way of thinking.[4] The Augustans saw the emergence of an all-new world view. The mechanistic laws of Newton granted a new access to unravelling the mysteries of the universe and lead to a new way of scientific experimenting based upon the principle of empiricism. Virtually all Augustan writers were profoundly influenced by the new developments in science and philosophy. This is reflected in a very accurate writing style with frequent usage of scientific metaphors, and great focus on careful argumentation. Of course, the "Modern Age" is still influenced by the Newtonian discoveries. Nowadays, though, scientific research is so ubiquitous, and has so often resulted in disastrous events, that new discoveries in science are often viewed with contempt instead of curiosity, as possible threats instead of gifts to mankind. In addition to this, scientific research, some say, has nowadays reached a point where the paradigm shifts from the world of atoms the Augustans where so eager to explore to the world of (computer) bits and bytes the Augustans, of course, could not foresee. As a kind of counter movement to the rational reign of science, the dominance of reason favoured by many in the Augustan "Enlightened Age" is nowadays often viewed with considerable contempt. Whereas the Augustans regarded sentiment and imagination rather sceptically as possible causes of folly, they are now largely seen as a vital part of mankind. Furthermore, philosophical principles like "The Great Chain of Being", held in high esteem by the Augustans, are now obsolete.[5] The vast influence of classical literature and civilisation that contributed to shape the Augustan age is no longer a given. [6]
All these differences,, however, do not necessarily mean that Augustan satire loses all its value when read in our time. There are several characteristics of satire that work well at preserving its value for the future. For example, "the object of satire is always error, of one sort or another." And certain errors persist, like vanity, greed, naiveté, religious fanaticism.[7] Moreover, Swift's own belief that mankind "is a prey to subversion and unhappiness from within, that men are by mental constitution restless, irrational and unsatisfied, congenitally prone to false needs and driven to supererogatory and destructive satisfactions" is a view many contemporaries of the 20th century are likely to agree with.[8]
Still, some of Swift's satiric writing is not free from signs of age, such as "The Lady's Dressing Room" (1730). In this poem, the pastorally named Strephon finds the dressing room of the lady of his choice, Celia, empty. Curious to find out what she does in those "Five hours (and who can do it less in)" (l. 1) she spends there every day, he decides to play "Peeping Tom" and enters the room for an elaborate inspection of everything he might find. It does not take long until he realises that, much to his dismay, Celia is not the unearthly "Goddess" (l. 3) he imagined her to be. Instead, a "dirty Smock", "Beneath the Arm-pits well besmear'd" (ll. 11-12), "various combs", "Fill'd up with Dirt" (ll. 20-21), stockings "Stain'd with the Marks of stinking toes" (l. 52) and other items prove that she produces a vast array of very earthly stains and smells. The most disgusting discovery, however, awaits Strephon in a mysterious cabinet:
"He lifts the Lid, there needs no more,
He smelt it all the Time before." (ll. 81-2)
It is not hard to guess what Strephon sees, and it is enough to make the appalled lover leave the dressing room:
"Thus finishing his grand Survey,
Disgusted Strephon stole away
Repeating in his amorous Fits,
Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!" (ll. 115-18)
Even though, on first view, this poem might come across as a vicious attack on the uncleanness of Celia, the real target is rather Strephon, who, in his naive folly of love, failed to realise that Celia is, underneath careful clothing and makeup, just an ordinary, mortal woman. This, of course, makes him all the more vulnerable to the unrestricted passion of love, an emotion the rationally thinking, rather unromantic Swift was critical of. Even though Strephon is later punished for his peeping because
"His foul Imagination links
Each Dame he sees with all her Stinks" (ll 121-2),
in the end he will have learned his lesson, which is, as the poem's speaker explicitly points pout, that even the most beautiful women are, just like Celia,
"Such Order from Confusion sprung,
Such gaudy Tulips rais'd from Dung." (ll 143-4)
This realisation may help men to view women as they are and, thus, to steer clear of the dangerous and irrational realms of exaggerated passion.[9]
Nowadays, however, the naiveté of Strephon does not seem credible anymore. Changed social norms make "Ladys' Dressing Rooms" far more accessible than in Swift's, and his character Strephon's, time. The fact that even the most beautiful of women do not look like heavenly creatures at all times and do, indeed, shit, hardly comes as a surprise, even to the most naive of men. Furthermore, one might add, certain improvements in personal hygiene in our times make the discovery of appalling artefacts in dressing rooms or bathrooms less likely. Finally, the contemporary contempt for the reign of reason alone makes Swift's aim to cure men from the dangers of passion seem rather pointless, as passion is now widely regarded as highly desirable. "To attack anything, writer and audience must agree on its undesirability, which means that the content of a great deal of satire ... goes out of date very quickly."[10]. Thus, to the contemporary reader, the "Lady's Dressing Room" has lost much of its importance To him, it must seem like a detailed, yet outdated description of an aspect of everyday life in the Augustan age.[11]
Another example of Swift's satiric art proves more effective with contemporary readers. His "Modest Proposal" still evokes immediate and very strong reactions. In this work, Swift touches on a taboo respected likewise by the Augustans and the "Moderns": "The narrator of the Modest Proposal [is] a social-minded and sensible man who makes one small error in categorization - [he] includes poor Irish babies under the category 'livestock', rather than 'fellow man', and everything else follows logically."[12]
Indeed, Swift's "Proposal" seems rather monstrous than modest. With regard to the widespread poverty (particularly common among the catholic or "papist" majority) in Swift's native country Ireland, the speaker (in the following referred to as the "Proposer") has an "innocent, cheap, easy and effectual" idea how to help the situation.[13] The idea is to sell Irish children as food, therefore both providing a new source of income for the Irish and, very literally, reducing the number of the destitute and underfed. In a very articulate manner and the tone of perfectly rational, careful argumentation, the Proposer tries to convince the reader of what seems to him the most obvious of thoughts. Starving children to death, it seems in his argumentation, is less an act of inhumanity than an act of economic folly, of wasted resources: "I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child, well nursed, is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled, and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout." The children serve as a worthy replacement for deer and other kind of exclusive meat, "very proper for landlords."[14] Even more money can be made by using not only the meat: "Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay the carcass; the skin of which, artificially dressed, will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen."[15]
The Proposer almost cheerfully points out that no additional plan is needed to take care of the "aged, diseased or maimed". In his opinion, it is sufficient to get rid of the children, since "it is very well known that they [the diseased and elderly] are every day dying, and rotting, by cold and famine, and filth, and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected. And as to the young labourers they are now in almost as helpful a condition."[16]
Further widening the gap between the monstrous nature of his proposal and the maddening coolness of his argumentation, Swift's Proposer even uses statistics and calculations to come to the conclusion "that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed ... One male will be sufficient to serve four females."[17] He treats human beings like animals, which seems to be what Swift accuses the English, and the wealthy Irish, of. The idea of letting the wealthy English and Irish eat Irish babies then becomes a powerful metaphor for the evil at the root of the Irish famine: The well-off live by exploiting the poor, they make themselves comfortable by denying a large proportion of the Irish population comfort - or at least an acceptable standard of living. "The Proposer's present blandness and assurance of success derive from the fact that his new scheme is so evil that a morally mad world must accept it as good."[18]
Even though the Proposer claims that he calculates his "remedy for this one individual Kingdom of IRELAND, and for no other that ever was, is, or, I think, ever can be upon earth," the strength of this satire and the timeless nature of its basic idea (breaking the taboo of eating children to raise awareness of the readership) makes it tempting to apply it to other, more contemporary, evils.[19] Rather than wealthy Irish and Englishmen feeding on the Irish poor, large proportions of the world (the "first world", including European countries and the USA) nowadays base part of their prosperity on the misery of third world and "second world" countries. Cheap labour in countries like Malaysia or Indonesia, and low-cost imports of coffee, fruit and other goods from African and other nations help to boost profits and standard of living in the wealthy nations. Very few slight modifications could create an "up to date" version of the "Modest Proposal" - and if a work like this was published in a prominent magazine or newspaper, it would surely still hit the nerve of the readership and spark immediate, passionate discussion. That this seems possible is more than enough to prove the "Proposal's" unrestrained level of validity and interest.[20]
There are critical voices, though, who disagree with some of the conclusions drawn so far. The above interpretation of the "Modest Proposal" implies that "the relation of the speaker to the author is extremely oblique, not to say antithetical," and that Swift was very concerned with the fate of the Irish poor.[21] In his "Reading of the Modest Proposal," Rawson claims that this is not entirely the case. According to his research, Swift and his Proposer shared a lot of their beliefs. "To suggest that Swift was radically attacking the notion of economic planning of human affairs, or even that his attitude on certain central questions (poverty, beggars, the care of children) was 'humane' or 'liberal' in a sense which a modern reader would understand or assent to, is misleading."[22] Swift, as Rawson puts it, despised beggars and most likely shared the view that "charity to children in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries meant enabling them to earn their own living at the earliest possible moment" with many of his contemporaries.[23] Furthermore, "in Swift's own time, cannibal jokes and associated ironies about, for example, flaying the Irish and selling their skins, were evidently not uncommon, whether in a contemptuous or a compassionate or other context."[24]
Rawson's revelations about Swift's character and beliefs and his relatively close relationship with the Proposer, however, do not lead the author of this essay to a dramatic change of his interpretation. The "Modest Proposal" may well have been intended less ironic and subversive than current readers think: "... Our very eagerness to grow contemporary with the Augustans ... is what impels us to misrepresent their civilization. In teaching, in criticism, in scholarship we bring to bear on old masters the taste and methods that satisfy our own generation."[25] Yet does this matter? If the "Modest Proposal" seems even more venomous, cynical and controversial when being read without relating it to the views of its author and his time, why should one not read it like that? Does it impair the value of a literary work when it is being read with other eyes than that of the author? Or is it not rather a characteristic of good satire (as of any good writing) to inspire new readings and interpretations with every new generation of readers?
Satire is, in the fitting words of an American undergraduate, "a salad bowl of mixings in which the reader must choose the dressing, and not the author, for the final outcome of taste."[26] Even though contemporary dressings might be different from Swift's own, with the "Modest Proposal" and other magnificent satires they still make for a delicious meal.
Word Count without Footnotes: 2516.
Briggs, Peter M., "Notes Toward a Teachable Definition of Satire," in ECL, Vol. 5, No.3, Spring 1979, pp. 29-39.
Culler, Jonathan, "Convention and Naturalization," in Structuralist Poetics (London, 1975), pp. 130-160.
Ehrenpreis, Irvin, Literary Meaning and Augustan Values (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1974).
Frye, Northrop, Anatomy of Criticism. Four Essays (Princeton: University Press, 1957).
Mack, Maynard, Collected in Himself. Essays Critical, Biographical, and Bibliographical on Pope and Some of His Contemporaries (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1982.
Nussbaum, Felicitas A., The Brink of All We Hate: English Satires on Women 1660 - 1750 (Kentucky: The University Press, 1984).
Quaintance, Richard, "Spinning Off a Satire Course: Some Problems and Possibilities," in ECL, Vol. 5, No. 3, Spring 1979, pp. 41-45.
Rawson, Claude, Order from Confusion Sprung. Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature from Swift to Cowper (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985).
Swift, Jonathan, "A Lady's Dressing Room," in Jonathan Swift: Poems, ed. Harold Williams, 2nd edn, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), Vol II, p. 524ff.
Swift, Jonathan, "A Modest Proposal for preventing the Children of poor People from being a Burthen to their Parents or the Country, and for making them Beneficial to the Public," in Jonathan Swift: A Critical Edition of the Major Works, ed. Angus Ross and David Woolley (Oxford: University Press, 1984), p. 492ff.
Swift, Jonathan, "An Apology," in Jonathan Swift: A Critical Edition of the Major Works, ed. Angus Ross and David Woolley (Oxford: University Press, 1984), p. 63ff.
[1] Jonathan Swift, "An Apology," in Jonathan Swift: A Critical Edition of the Major Works, ed. Angus Ross and David Woolley (Oxford: University Press, 1984), p. 63.
[2] An excellent analysis of the process of understanding, or "naturalising", a text by individual readers can be found in Jonathan Culler's chapter "Convention and Naturalization": "A work can only be read in connection with or against other texts [ie not only written texts, but also previously acquired knowledge, experiences, values and beliefs of the reader], which provide a grid through which it is read and structured by establishing expectations which enable one to pick out salient features and give them a structure." - Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (London, 1975), p. 132.
[3] Jonathan Swift, "A Modest Proposal for preventing the Children of poor People from being a Burthen to their Parents or the Country, and for making them Beneficial to the Public," in Jonathan Swift: A Critical Edition of the Major Works, ed. Angus Ross and David Woolley (Oxford: University Press, 1984), p. 492ff. In the following referenced as "Proposal". - Jonathan Swift, "A Lady's Dressing Room," in Jonathan Swift: Poems, ed. Harold Williams, 2nd edn, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), Vol II, p. 524ff.
[4] Of course, when talking about the characteristics of an age, it needs to be taken into account that "the notion that different people felt differently is [not] a modern invention." Among themselves, Augustan writers often held very contrasting views. - Claude Rawson, Order from Confusion Sprung. Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature from Swift to Cowper (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985), p. X.
[5] The principle of the "Great Chain of Being", described by Pope in his "Essay on Man", sees man as a linking element in a chain reaching from God (at the upper end) via man and animals down to lifeless matter (e.g. stones).
[6] "Eighteenth century authors are not only rooted in their own time and culture, but exist in an older and continuously evolving tradition. Their attitudes, themes and styles derive from the past and look forward to the future." Rawson, p. IX.
[7] Peter M. Briggs, "Notes Toward a Teachable Definition of Satire," in ECL, Vol. 5, No.3, Spring 1979, p. 31.
[8] Rawson, p. 3.
[9] "Swift's point in writing the poems that nauseate their readers is to release men from passion and its attendant madness rather than to reform women's boudoir habits ... The message, for any man who seeks it, is that the boudoir offers a check on lust, a restraint from the madness of passion, and a possibility of rescuing man from his own irrational fancies." - Felicitas A. Nussbaum, The Brink of All We Hate: English Satires on Women 1660 - 1750 (Kentucky: The University Press, 1984), p. 112.
[10] Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism. Four Essays (Princeton: University Press, 1957), p. 224.
[11] Of course, the "Lady's Dressing Room" can also be read with a different viewing angle than the one above: Swift's poem may be regarded as an allegory on high society, or politics and diplomacy. There, very often, dark and rather unpleasant truths lurk underneath the shining surface of glamour. Unfortunately, the limited space does not allow for a careful examination of this theory.
[12] Briggs, p. 33.
[13] Proposal, p. 498.
[14] Proposal, pp. 493-4.
[15] Proposal, pp. 494-5.
[16] Proposal, p. 496.
[17] Proposal, p. 494.
[18] Rawson, p. 63.
[19] Proposal, p. 497.
[20] Another argument for the Modest Proposal's current validity is provided by Richard Quaintance. He compares Swift's work with a contemporary imitation by Philipp Roth (1970). "This strategy helps to clarify not only the durable 'relevance' of the eighteenth century work but often its unmatched strengths. ... While Roth's irony is powered by parody of Nixon and General Westmoreland, Swift's bounces off the cant of social engineering and husbandry in any modern era and nation. Both stigmatize imperialist pride, but Swift's language bites deeper into the lovely lies through which we prescribe remedies for those we'd think (and keep) 'less fortunate than ourselves'" - Richard Quaintance, "Spinning Off a Satire Course: Some Problems and Possibilities," in ECL, Vol. 5, No. 3, Spring 1979, p. 41.
[21] Maynard Mack, Collected in Himself. Essays Critical, Biographical, and Bibliographical on Pope and Some of His Contemporaries (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1982, p. 58.
[22] Rawson, p. 121.
[23] Rawson, p. 122.
[24] Rawson, p. 142.
[25] Irvin Ehrenpreis, Literary Meaning and Augustan Values (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1974), p. 3.
[26] Quaintance, p. 45.