Swift's A Modest Proposal

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2009

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most brilliant and shocking satires ever written in English – Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. Masquerading as an attempt to end poverty in Ireland once and for all, a Modest Proposal is a short pamphlet that draws the reader into a scheme for economic and industrial horror. Published anonymously but written by Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal lays bare the cruel presumptions, unchecked prejudice, the politics and the poverty of the 18th century, but it also reveals, perhaps more than anything else, the character and the mind of Swift himself.With John Mullan, Professor of English at University College London; Judith Hawley, Professor of 18th Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London and Ian McBride, Senior Lecturer in the History Department at King’s College London.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:36.0	Thanks for downloading the In Our Time Podcast.
0:39.0	For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co. UK forward slash radio for I hope you enjoy
0:46.6	the program.
0:48.6	Hello 1729 was a very bad year for the Irish people who worked the land. Three failed
0:55.3	harvests and oppressive laws meant times were dire. Poverty, disease and famine
1:00.3	were the lot of life and had been for a while. But then came an idea to solve Irish
1:04.5	poverty once and for all. It was published in a short pamphlet with a long title, a modest
1:09.2	proposal for preventing the children of the poor people in Ireland from being a burden to their parents or country
1:14.8	and for making them beneficial to the public.
1:16.8	It's known more conveniently as a modest proposal.
1:19.8	A modest proposal was published anonymously but written by Jonathan Swift three years after
1:24.4	Gulliver's travels, and it's one of the most chilling and brilliant satires in English.
1:28.6	It lays bare the cruel presumptions, unchecked prejudice, the politics and the poverty of the 18th century, but it also
1:35.3	reveals perhaps more than anything else the character and the mind of Swift himself.
1:40.4	With me to discuss a modest proposal I Judith Hawley, Professor of 18th Century Literature at Royal Holloway University of London.
1:46.5	Ian McBride, Senior Lecturer in the History Department at King's College London and John Mullen,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.