A Tale of A Tub

This is an utterly brilliant satire in the English branch of the Querelle Des Anciens et Modernes.

Swift starts out with a persona who is a Modern in allegiance who appears to be writing an allegorical defense of the Church of England. His plan is to alternate chapters of the story with digressions on various topics (which is hardly unheard of; the book owes a lot to Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy). But the author is, to anticipate the terminology of Pope, a Dunce, and the book falls apart progressively as it proceeds, because the bases of the persona's methodology and views of the world do not hold together.

Swift was to reuse this model of a persona different from the author again; the Drapier's Letters, Gulliver's Travels, and show more "A Modest Proposal" use the same basic model to different ends. (Gulliver in particular is a Modern who cannot interpret what he sees.) Pope borrowed it occasionally, notably in the "To Augustus", but it was Swift who remained its entire master.

The Battle of the Books is a more minor work, very much on the same theme, but using mock-epic, and directly reflects Swift's defence of Sir William Temple. (It also marks the emergence of Bentley as a major butt of the Augustan satirists). show less

A História de um Barril foi enormemente popular, apresentando tanto uma sátira aos excessos religiosos quanto uma paródia da escrita contemporânea em literatura, política, teologia, exegese bíblica e medicina, através de seu prefácio comicamente excessivo e uma série de digressões ao longo do texto. A paródia predominante é do entusiasmo, do orgulho e da credulidade. Na época em que foi escrito, política e religião ainda estavam intimamente ligadas na Inglaterra, e os aspectos religiosos e políticos da sátira muitas vezes dificilmente podem ser separados. "A obra tornou Swift notório e foi amplamente mal compreendida, especialmente pela própria Rainha Ana, que confundiu seu propósito com profanidade w efetivamente show more impediu seu autor de obter a devida promoção" na Igreja da Inglaterra .
A obra expõe, principalmente, a hipocrisia religiosa e as tendências intelectuais da época de Swift. show less

When I put this on my TBR pile for 2019 I did not realize what a chore this would be. I loved A Modest Proposal for wit and humor but this early and most intense satire by Jonathan Swift was a real drag. The author is writing a satire and from what I can decern, is about Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinism. It is also intermixed with satire of critics and modernism. Yes, modernism of the 1600s. I am sure this is included in 1001 Books you must Read because Swift is surely a pioneer and probably the greatest satirist of all time. However, this is more an essay than a novel. Interspersed is the story of three brothers; Peter (catholic) Martin (Martin Luther) and Jack (John Calvin). I enjoyed those parts the most. The style that this is show more written in is also apart of the parody and I am sure that if I were to read this as part of college course or a learned group, there would be much to find. Mostly I found this book great for getting 40 winks. show less

Swift is better known for his later works (Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal in particular) and having read those before turning to this, it’s easy to see why. In fact, I’m very glad I did it that way round or I might have never had the courage to face the others. A Tale of a Tub is not an easy read. For a start, it lacks a cohesive structure, but as with all dated satire, references can be very hard to pinpoint.

Thankfully, it starts out pretty simply. Three brothers are left coats in their father’s will which instructs them not to make any alterations to them at all. Of course, as fashions change, they make every effort they can to read the will to see what’s allowed and what isn’t. And where their wishes are not show more granted, they find a loophole to enable them to gratify themselves.

The three brothers are fairly obviously the Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist branches of the church and they come in for some
stinging satire being the main targets throughout the book. In this writing, you can easily see the genius that was to set Swift apart from his generation. In fact, it’s a measure of his genius that his satire is very, very much relevant today; I finished the book while gay marriage became legal in the UK and heard members of the Church of England speaking out in support of it.

But what makes this book a tad difficult is that Swift has not knocked his work into something of a comprehensive whole. There are digressions all over the place. In fact, there are digressions explicitly about digressions! Sure, there is a lot of license when writing satire but this didn’t work for me. I was grateful that this was a pretty short one.

So, an important book because it shows the Swift that was to come. But not one I’ll be rereading before I die. show less

In this short work the master of satire satirizes most of the important parts of eighteenth century society: religion, politics, and even writing itself. Three brothers, Peter (representing St. Peter and Catholicism), Martin (representing Martin Luther and Protestantism), and Jack (representing John Calvin and the Church of England), are left with coats and specific instructions for caring for their coats in their father's will. When following their father's instructions to the letter becomes inconvenient for them, they start to creatively interpret the will. Peter eventually becomes wealthy, and his brothers criticize him for excluding them and decide to be more faithful in following their father's instructions. Martin very carefully show more removes as many of the adornments he has added to his coat as he can without damaging it, then leaves the rest in order to preserve the original coat. Jack rips all of the extra adornments off but destroys the original coat in the process. Mixed in between parts of the story are a series of digressions that satirize a variety of different topics.

I found this piece to be both fun to read and hard to read at the same time. Swift's language and usage are just different enough from contemporary English that it makes him difficult to understand, and the fact that satire is often deliberately obtuse didn't help. Nevertheless, I was able to keep up with most of what he was saying, and I really appreciate Swifts's skill as the master of satire. show less

You know those moments when you, who learned English as a foreign language since you were young, think that you understand the language perfectly fine, and then you decide to read a book and realize that you know nothing? Well, this is basically how this book made me feel: utterly stupid, ignorant, humiliated and disappointed with myself. I'm pretty sure this is a darn good book and an intelligent critique once you're given the context and the political situation that serves as a background for it. The thing is that I didn't understand a word of what was being said. Or better saying: I did understand all the words in the book, but put together they did not. make. any. sense.

You see, this is the problem with literature (or people like me show more trying to get the habit of reading more often) nowadays: the books are easy to understand. They are simple, they don't have "hidden meanings", most of them don't have metaphors or whatever you want to call it. This book is basically composed by them. Implicit things. Implicit things EVERYWHERE. And the writing style is not just plain phrases that make up a meaning. They just look like random thoughts thrown all together to form an idea of something so deep I couldn't understand after re-reading them three or four times. In the tenth page, I pretty much gave up and just ran my eyes through the words. The mini-stories in the middle of the book (the three brothers and the suits) did make sense for a while, but then Swift is lovely enough to abruptly interrupt the story to say more things that I could not understand. By the time he goes back to this story, I no longer know what the hell is going on here. And notice that I'm not even mentioning the classic English language used to write this book, which I never learned in school (remember, "English as a foreign language") and had to struggle to understand. Unlike in other books, deducing words' meanings by the context does not work here. You HAVE to run to a dictionary to find yourself in this one. Either that, or just abandon the book. My pride never allowed me to do that, so that wasn't an option for me, but I must say that after reading this book, I'm NEVER saying that I know English. Ever again. show less

Subordinate clause follows subordinate clause, ad tedium. Interesting as a historical document, but it's hard to get much actual joy when the target of the satire is no longer relevant, and the wit is buried in overwrought 18th century writing.