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A Modest Proposal, satiric essay by Jonathan Swift, published in pamphlet form in 1729. Presented in the guise of an economic treatise, the essay proposes that the country ameliorate poverty in Ireland by butchering the children of the Irish poor and selling them as food to wealthy English landlords.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The full title of the essay is ‘For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick’ and is commonly known as ‘A Modest Proposal’ in its short form. It was published in 1729 anonymously.
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A Modest Proposal. For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick. By Dr. Jonathan Swift.
A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a satirical pamphlet written and published by Jonathan Swift in 1729.
Responding to the public outcry for a remedy, Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal” as a satire—a literary work that ridicules a subject through the use of irony and wit and is intended to create amusement, contempt, or anger in the reader.
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