A Modest Proposal and Other Satires Lesson Plan

Though satire existed as a form long before his lifetime, Jonathan Swift is widely hailed as the master of the genre in the English language. Swift is often compared to his contemporary and friend, Alexander Pope. The two both wrote satirical works, though of different forms: Pope’s poems strive to accomplish lyrical and lengthy reflection on his subjects, whereas Swift’s prose was, with some exceptions, much more grounded in the contemporary politics and concerns that his prose sought to highlight. Swift may be most famous for his novel Gulliver’s Travels, but he spent the greater part of his career composing journalistic articles and political essays on the turmoil of England and...