A Modest Proposal

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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 simply as A Modest Proposal, is a 1729 satirical essay by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift. The essay, written from the perspective of a fictional narrator, suggests that the Irish poor could ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food to wealthy gentlemen and ladies. In English writing, the phrase "a modest proposal" is now conventionally an allusion to this style of deadpan satire. The essay begins by describing the plight of Ireland's poor before suggesting that their poverty could be resolved by selling their children to the wealthy. It goes on to include detailed methods of preparing the children as food and calculations showing the financial benefits of his suggestion. Swift concludes the essay by indirectly making a series of suggestions for what he actually wishes to...

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