Jonathon Swift’s Prose Style

Jonathon Swift’s Prose Style

The Greatest Satirical Prose writer :-

It has rightly and honestly been said that Swift was the greatest prose satirist of England. He dominated the first half of the eighteenth century as Dr. Johnson did the second: and as an intellectual, he was far superior to Johnson. Some of his satires are obscene, misanthropic, and cynical, but none can question his moral integrity and the unflinching earnestness with which he removes the externals of things to bring out the corruption which lies at their heart. Swift‘s satire is all embracing. Its rapier-like thrust‘s spare neither a fraudulent almanac-maker, nor a misguided zealot,. nor an airy philosopher, nor a glib politician, nor a conceited fop, nor a pretentious scientist. Indeed, the extensiveness of his satire is remarkable. This greatest of satirists once satirised even satire! The platry Partridge (an almanac-maker) and the great Walpole (The Prime

Minister of England) alike winced under his terrible ―whip of scorpions‖.

His Razor-edged Satire :-

Swift‘s sensitiveness to the corruption, the numerous frustrations which punctuated the entire span of his life, and the egregious folly, corruption, and self-seeking which he found marring the prospect of ―the age of reason and good sense‖, prompted him to take up his lash. The age deserved satire, and his personal disposition and disappointments made him keen enough to give it. Swift‘ is perfectly right when he says in The Death of Dean Swift:

Perhaps I may allow the Dean

Had too much satire in his vein,

And seem’d determined not to starve it,

Because no age could more deserve it.

His Technique:-

The greatness of Swift‘s satire is, in the last analysis, a triumph of technique. His arsenal as a satirist is chockful of weapons of all descriptions. Wit, raillery, sarcasm, irony, allegory, banter, and so many more weapons are used to perfection by him in his crusade against folly, injustice, and unreason. Whichever weapon may he be employing for attack, his satire is usually darker and more telling than that of most writers. He may sometimes touch lightly, but very often he pierced deep to the very heart of life. In any case, his satire is very disturbing as it presents things in a fairly unconventional perspective eminently calculated to shatter the complacency of the reader. When Swift points out the acquired follies, he is quite constructive; but when he saves the very nature of man, he is nothing but destructive.

His Prose; Full of irony:-

Of all the satiric techniques, the one most effectively used by Swift is irony. With Swift, irony is often much more than just a figure of speech, it is extended so that the entire range of thoughts and feelings presented in a satiric work seem to be coming not from Swift himself but from a fictive character created for the purpose. The irony lies in the difference between the views expressed by the persona and tile common sense views.

His Prose – pieces:-

Swift wrote a very large number of prose pieces of which the most important are The Battle of .the Books, A Tale of a Tub, and Gulliver‘s Travel. The first is just a feitid‘ esprit, and was meant to lampoon in mock-heroic terms the opponents of his patron Sir William Temple — particularly Richard Bentley and William Wotton, both of disputed the view of Temple granting supremacy to ancients over moderns. A Tale of a Tub was meant to be a satire on the numerous and gross corruptions in religion and learning, It represented the Church of England as the best of all Churches in ―doctrine and discipline,‖ and also lashed the shallow writers and critics of the age. Gulliver‘s Travels is the most famous of Swift‘s works. In it he savagely indicted ―that animal‖ called man.‖ Though it ‗has the externals of a travel romance, yet in reality it is a terrible but well-calculated satire on all the activities of human life and all the attributes of human nature, not‘ sparing even the human body. However, its irony is so deep that it has been a favourite gift book for children. Kipling once said that Swift ―ignited a volcano to light a child to bed.‖ In fact, the book is enjoyed by all children from nine to ninety.

Concise Prose Style:-

Credit must be given to Swift for the clarity, precision, and, what Herbert Davis calIs the conciseness, of his prose style. Swift despises all unnecessary ornament. HIS imagery, however, is prolific and concrete, at any rate, he gives us the impression of an easy mastery of the language. Halliday in the introduction to his Section on Swift observes: ―…the various phases of scorn and satire of appraisement and direct denunciation, the various moods and tempers of the writer are expressed with wonderful and subtle skill. The secret of his power over his readers is to be sought for here. He makes you responsive to every emotion and draws you with the magic of his pipe into whatever region desires.‖ No doubt, swift had a mastery over the use of his prose technique.