Jonathan Swift’s Essay A Modest Proposal, and Voltaire’s Novella, Candide

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There are two vastly differing works of literature that employ similar elements of satire, whether the story is long or short, essay or novella. In these two works, the authors bring light to ongoing social, political, and philosophical issues of their time and age. The two works I am referring to are Jonathan Swift’s satirical essay, A Modest Proposal, and Voltaire’s novella, Candide, or Optimism. In both A Modest Proposal and Candide, there is a portrayal of irony, cold logic and reasoning rather than emotion, and misguided philosophy. Exploring the issues within these texts can implement a better understanding of not only the literature itself, but also the historical context and the issues of the time. By delving even deeper into these works, one will begin to see the connection that can be made between these texts.
Jonathan Swift and Voltaire come from diverse geographical locations and have a thirty year span between the publications of their works; to be concise, it can be said that there is a noticeable difference between A Modest Proposal and Candide. Additionally, the factors of their daily lives and their countries’ politics will exhibit a difference in the context of these two pieces. While Swift’s essay addresses his country’s famine and financial turmoil, Voltaire addresses a vast number of issues in his novella, including the Leibniz theory and the hypocrisy of the Church. Despite these differences, the similarities persist in the methods used to educate and inform the public of these social, political, economical, and philosophical concerns.
Primarily used in satire is the literary device, irony, which is often displayed in both Swift’s essay and Voltaire’s novella; it is used to convey the duplicity of certain ...

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... value, the enticement of which causes flocks of people to emerge onto the scene and gain knowledge of certain situations. By using techniques as such, audiences who would have otherwise ignored social or political situations would have thusly gained the necessary knowledge while have a decent laugh or two. Consequently concluding this assertion of the parallels observed in Candide and A Modest Proposal, one can now distinguish the characteristics that link these two literary works.

Works Cited

http://www.articlemyriad.com/irony-social-critique-modest-proposal-candide/ http://www.new-wisdom.org/cultural_history2/4-neo-classicism/3-satire.htm http://www.gutenburg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm http://natashacribbs.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/logic-as-opposed-to-emotion-in-candide-and-modest-proposal/ "Candide" by Voltaire, Gateways to World Literature Volume 2

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