The author does well with showing his reasons for his proposal. But if it were up to me I would make it a bit more interesting by telling maybe a negative to it to show an understanding for people who don’t agree with him. I’m not sure if he was actually serious, but if he was serious about it, some of his reasons were very realistic.

İnsanlara olan nefretiyle tanınan Jonathan Swift’in denemelerini okuyucuya sunan "Alçakgönüllü Bir Öneri / A Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works", Swift’in entelektüel birikimini ve çeşitli konularla ilgili görüşlerini öğrenebilmek adına güzel bir toplama. Denemelerin genel olarak değerlendirildiğinde bir bütünlük sağlayamadığı eserde en beğendiğim ve tam puan verdiğim bölüm "Çeşitli Konular Üzerine Düşünceler" oldu. Buna ek olarak entelektüel anlamda nitelikli "Basmakalıp bir Deneme", modernle klasik edebiyatı Homeros gibi destansı bir savaşla metaforik olarak kıyasladığı "Kitaplar Arasında Yaşanan Çatışma" ve İngiltere’deki çocuk fazlalığını ironik bir şekilde eleştirdiği "Alçakgönüllü Bir Öneri" bölümlerini de beğendim. Swift'in başyapıtı "Gulliver'in Gezileri"ni okuduktan sonra yazarı daha yakından tanımak için şans verilebilir bir eser. Tam notum: 3,5/5.

01.04.2019
İstanbul, Türkiye

Alp Turgut

http://www.filmdoktoru.com/kitap-labo...

So the best essay in the whole story was definitely A Modest Proposal. But several of the other essays were very entertaining also. The reason for the only 4 stars instead of the 5 is because, while the Battle of the Books was entertaining, it was overly long and missing big portions of it. Also, I honestly had zero idea what was going on in A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operations of the Spirit.

His proposal is fantastic, very logically sound. Maybe we should in fact eat children as a cost-cutting mechanism in society? Imagine the starvation we'd avoid.

Seja lá o que se pense sobre a modéstia da proposta canibal, Bickerstaff foi uma ótima sátira de Swift para demonstrar o quão facilmente, mesmo no século 18, a opinião pública pode ser deformada com as formas midiáticas e de ignorância mais tradicionais.

I was in high school when I first read this and once I got over the shock of the proposal I grew to appreciate the wit in the satire and the history behind the motivation and purpose of the author for writing it.

Ci ho messo troppo, decisamente troppo.

When one hears 'Swift', Gulliver's Travels usually comes to mind and that was an exceptional work of literature, so I think I'll experience him from a satirical angle.

Actually I ended up listening to this work (having acquired an audio version). Yes I admire Swift's irony in relation to every day situations, though it may seem a bit harsh, the method may at times be the only means of effectivly relating a message.

This collection of Jonathan Swift's satirical works is very witty, very clever and very well-written. You do need a reasonably good knowledge of the times in which he wrote to appreciate much of it but I enjoyed it a great deal and I'm very far from being a historian.

When this is funny, which is a lot, it is very funny indeed. It's also thought-provoking; particularly when he addresses issues which still haven't been resolved to this day. I can't quite bring myself to give it the full five stars, however, because there are passages contained herein which are quite tedious and a bit of a slog to get through. They're very much the exception rather than the rule, though, and this is a great read overall.

I can only imagine what an outcry 'A Modest Proposal' must have caused when originally published. The people I've spoken to about it who didn't know the basic premise have found it quite shocking even today.

ever so slightly disturbed with the idea of eating babies to reduce the number of people living in the streets. overall this was just a book fill of surprises and kept making me question everything i know and believe. not a bad little book though.

This is another book that I read to teach at Ursuline next year. Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is without a doubt one of the most intellectual and humorous pieces of satire ever written. Another satiric essay that I liked was "An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity in England". This was written earlier than "A Modest Proposal" but uses soome of the same devices. Swift's evidence shows how ending Christianity would bring political and economic benefits to England. Of course, his argument is sarcastic and in opposition to his own beliefs; Swift was an ordained Anglican minister.

I wasn't nearly as impressed with the other satirical writings. "The Battle of the Books" is about a battle between books written by ancient and modern writers. I felt left out while I was reading it because I didn't know who the "modern" writers of the 17th and 18th centuries were. The work also wasn't finished and that left me at a loss.

I would like to read Swift's magnum opus, "Guliver's Travels", some day. However, I was disappointed by the overall body of his work in this set of essays. I found him to be highly witty, but he could also get too philosophical and meandering, and I often lost my interest in his writing.

Swift's satiric proposal that Ireland solve overpopulation and hunger by literally eating their young. Still bristles.