Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal and Wilfred Owen's Dulce tt Decorum Est

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Literature can have many purposes including entertainment, education, or persuasion. Literature can also be written to challenge common beliefs. This idea is seen by studying “A Modest Proposal,” written by Jonathan Swift and “Dulce et Decorum Est,” by Wilfred Owen. While reading through the poems, it would be difficult to see any similarities due to the fact that one is a poem about war and the other is an economic proposal. While "A Modest Proposal" and “Dulce et Decorum Est" are two pieces of literature from two different time periods, they show a certain similarity in the way they relate to and question the views of their respective periods.
“A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick,” commonly referred to as “A Modest Proposal,” is an essay written by Jonathan Swift that was published in 1729 (Manlove). Swift wrote this proposal in response to Ireland’s population and economic trials during the time of its writing. The answer to the nation’s problems that is presented by the essay is for Ireland to turn to cannibalization; particularly, the sale and use of poor children as a food source. This idea is first obvious as Swift writes, “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled, and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout” (40). Upon first read, it can almost seem as though this proposal is a serious one because of the intricate thought that has been put into it. Peter Schakel notes Swift’s attention to the prepara...

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...ter. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.
Seager, Nicholas. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics: epistemology and fiction in Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year." The Modern Language Review 103.3 (2008): 639+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
Swift, Jonathan. “A Modest Proposal.” Literature in Context. Revised Ed. Vol. II. Gerald C. Wood et al. Boston: Pearson, 2008. 39-43. Print.
"total, adj. and n.". OED Online. September 2013. Oxford University Press. 19 Nov. 2013.
Wittkowsky, George. "Swift's Modest Proposal: The Biography of an Early Georgian Pamphlet." Journal of the History of Ideas 4 (Jan.-Oct. 1943): 75-104. Rpt. in Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 101. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Wood, Gerald C. et al., Eds. Literature in Context. Boston: Pearson, 2008. Print.

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