Discussion Board Questions
Question 1
“A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift contains many aspects that are difficult to understand. One of the aspects that Swift constantly uses in his work and that are one of the major sources of understanding difficult is irony. I experienced great difficulty in understanding the poem because of the presence of irony. The irony is demonstrated at the story’s end where Swift states that his proposal would not in any way affect him because all of his children have matured and his wife is unable to give birth anymore. It is actually absurd to imagine that a sane man such a Swift would propose and take part in the consumption of another human being. To get around this difficulty, I had to analyze all the facts for the story to look for any hidden meanings or something that I had missed out. In the end, I was forced to make a general assumption and that was that Swift’s work is completely fictional and he has absolutely does not intend to pursue or advance his proposal. That was the only way that I could understand the ironical aspect of the poem.
Question 2
My understanding of the essay is made easier because I now understand that Swift’s work is actually fictional and he is not really proposing for cannibalism. What he is basically doing is to admonish the rich England landlords who have taken almost everything from the poor Irish. He is comparing their behaviour to cannibalism by stating that their greed can make them even consume fellow human beings sold to them by the poor Irish. A reader who is not much familiar with Swift’s work may take his comments seriously and fail to recognize that he is not really advocating for cannibalism and that he is only using cannibalism to take a jibe at the rich English landlords.
Question 3
Both are poems written in the Romantic and there are a lot of similarities and differences between the two. One of the most prevalent elements of the Romantic era is the nature of the poets of the era (who are mostly sad with the world) to escape the real world and enter into another ideal one. Disappointment then plagues the poet’s mental flight and he is forced to return to the real world. In most occasions, the poet returns because he has not found what was searching for. The experience however changes his general understanding of the situation and his views at the end of the poem are significantly different from those at the beginning. This element of romanticism is evident in the two poems, for instance, in “Nightgale” the poet frees from the real world and identifies with the Nightgale which represents nature and in Grecian urn, he identifies himself with the urn, which represents art. In both poems, the author increases the poem’s significance by contrasting between actual life and ideal beauty.
However, there is a difference in the tone of the two poems. The ‘Ode to Nightingale” is more subjective and pathetic that that in “ Ode on a Grecian Urn”. The subjectiveness of ‘Nightgale” mainly occurs because it draws from the author’s real life especially the death of his brother. On the other hand, “Urn” is quite joyful and generally celebrates the Urn’s beauty.
Question 4
There are many differences between Neoclassicism and Romanticism but the main one is that while romanticism focused on sentiment, imagination, self experience and emotion, neoclassicism mainly focused on reason, though and commonsense. In addition there was dominant appreciation for nature in Romanticism while Neoclassicism tended to prioritize human beings who were actually the main subjects of the poems of this era. In romanticism, the poet used the poem to express personal feelings due to the movement’s spontaneity, for example in A Modest proposal where the author expresses his feelings about the Irish oppression by the English landlords.. On the other hand, the poetry of Neoclassicism was an artful treatment of real life accounts and happenings that were converted into poetic compositions depicting fictional characters as it is seen in “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”.
