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A Modest Proposal
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A Modest Proposal

satiric essay by Swift
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Also known as: “A Modest Proposal For Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to their Parents, Or the Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to the Publick”
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A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to their Parents, or the Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick

A Modest Proposal, satiric essay by Jonathan Swift, published in pamphlet form in 1729.

Presented in the guise of an economic treatise, the essay proposes that the country ameliorate poverty in Ireland by butchering the children of the Irish poor and selling them as food to wealthy English landlords. Swift’s proposal is a savage comment on England’s legal and economic exploitation of Ireland. The essay is a masterpiece of satire, with a blend of rational deliberation and unthinkable conclusion, and its title has come to symbolize any proposition to solve a problem with an effective but outrageous cure.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.