A Modest Proposal

Born in 1667 in Dublin, Ireland, Jonathan Swift was a prolific satirist, novelist, poet, and pamphleteer. He frequently wrote in defense of greater Irish autonomy amid a period of fraught political tensions with England. A Modest Proposal reflects these pro-Irish attitudes by mocking elites who fear any reform that might offend England.

Despite his passionate advocacy for the economic and political self-sufficiency of Ireland, Swift’s personal views on England are complex. Born to English parents, Swift lived much of his young life in England and became a part of the inner circle of Queen Anne’s Tory government. Swift only returned to Ireland upon failing to win an expected church appointment in England. Writing in the Dictionary of National Biography, English critic Leslie Stephen states that Swift considered his return to Ireland a form of exile that would force him to live “like a rat in a hole.” (Stephen, Leslie. “Jonathan Swift.” Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder, & Co. 1885.)

Equally complex are Swift’s attitudes toward Catholicism. A devout Protestant, Swift supported the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in which King James II, a Catholic, was deposed and replaced by his Protestant daughter Queen Mary II. Moreover, he served as a high-ranking clergyman at St.