A Modest Proposal

Jonathan Swift (1667 –1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories),poet and cleric who became Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. He is remembered for works such as Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, Drapier's Letters, The Battle of the Books, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, and A Tale of a Tub. Swift is probably the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry. Swift originally published all of his works under pseudonyms―such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M.B. Drapier―or anonymously. He is also known for being a master of two styles of satire: the Horatian and Juvenalian styles.