A GROSS FORM OF DELIGHTFUL SATIRE Essays -- essays papers

A GROSS FORM OF DELIGHTFUL SATIREThe stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping arrive at our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes. -Jonathan alertWe have just enough religion to chafe us hate, but not enough to make us write out on another. -Jonathan Swift Like all true satirists, Swift was predominantly a moralist, one who chastises the vices and follies of humankind in the name of virtue and cat valium sense. Throughout his writing, Swift constantly raised the question of whether the achievements of civilization-its advancing technology, its institutions, its glossiness of manners-cannot be seen as complex forms of barbarism. With this theme in mind, Swift wrote slightly of his best works A Modest Proposal, Gullivers Travels, and A boloney of a Tub. Although he is mastery at prose, he is also know for his poetry. It can be said that the subjects within his writings could be taken from his religious belief in the non-perfection of man. Swi ft believed that human reason was inevitable to divine guidance. According to Herbert Read, Swift was the first poet who dared to describe nature as it is with all its deformities, and to give exact expression to a turn of vista no matter the subject. And because his life was one long mutiny-mutiny against darkness of fate, the iniquity of men, the indignity of our bodily functions-his work is one long scrutiny into dark depths. Therefore, he attacks the idealistic idea of feminine beauty by ironically lottery attention to the female bodys excretory functions. Unfortunately, Swift emphasizes women, contempt his deep love and friendship for individual women, as a sign of mans bestiality. He victimizes women by his own secret over-idealization of her. This is seen in his poems, The Ladys Dressing-Room, Strephon and Chloe, and A Beautiful Young Nymph firing to Bed. Swift becomes obsessed by the morbidly physical. The gap between pith and flesh cannot bridge, for flesh has become uncleansable to him. With Swift being seen by Robert Ellis--quoted by Herbert Read-as having neurasthenia, anything that comes regularly and in routine is liable to become intolerable, it is easier to understand few of his writings. This idea gained him much ridicule from critics because thinkers of his day stressed the essential honor and rationality of humans. Swift, certainly, shares this i... ...od which he was writing and the subjects that were generally written about. Because his descriptions are so detailed, and the imagery is so deep, Jonathan Swift proves himself as a writer to be studied and admired.BibliographyWORKS CITEDBrown, Laura. Reading Race and Gender Jonathan Swift. Critical Essays on Jonathan Swift. Ed. Frank Palmeri. New York G.K. Hall & Co, 1993. 122.Davis, Herbert. Swifts View of poetry. Poetry Criticism. Ed. Drew Kalasky. Vol. 9. Detroit Gale explore Company, 1994. 259Donoghue, Denis, Ed. Jonathan Swift. Australia Penguin Books, 1971. 307.Huxley, Aldous. Do What You Will. London Chatto & Windus, 1956.Johnson, Maurice. The Sin of Wit Jonathan Swift as a Poet. lit Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Ed. Dennis Poupard. Vol. 1. New Jersey Gale Research Company, 1984. 502.Read, Herbert. The Poems of Swift. Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Ed. Dennis Poupard. Vol. 1. New Jersey Gale Research Company, 1984. 453.Watkins, W.B.C. Absent Thee from Felicity. Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Ed. Dennis Poupard. Vol. 1. New Jersey Gale Research Company, 1984. 461.