What we need to know about Jonathan Swift

There should be a number of reports of people's explorations into Swift, his context, and his work on the Exploring Swift forum. Between now and Wednesday, you should read through them. As responses to at least three, reflect on what the report leads you to think you'd like to know more about -- whether about Swift's work or his context. I'd suggest you start your response with "I wonder . . . "

Having done that, make some choices: what issues does it seem to you we should explore over the next week (bring to class two lists: one of three or four questions about Swift and his context that you think could be answered, or fruitfully explored, in a few hours' work), and a second of which works of Swift you think it's important that some of us, or perhaps all of us, should read and discuss.
 

Reading A Modest Proposal together

For each of the first six sections of the work I've assembled what I think is a set of the different responses people offered via the online form. It's possible that I've missed some; I was away for the weekend and my mail filters seemed to work erratically, putting the emails as they came in into different folders. I've included the ones I was able to sort out and extract. If there are missing ones I'll include them on the pages over the next couple of days -- but for now, as Humpty Dumpty said to Alice "That's enough to begin with."

To begin, what I propose to do is set up six small groups to read through the responses to each of the sections.  What each group should do in a few minutes is to decide what the overall pattern is, and to identify one or two items people said that they think especially worth considering, either because they're surprising, or perceptive, or mistaken. I'll put the sections up on the screen, and ask groups in turn to tell us what they found. We'll then discuss what we see Swift as doing here, particularly with a focus on what its relationship to its readers, today and in 1727, might be.

A note on editing

You may remember that last Wednesday, talking about editing collaboratively, I advocated being ruthless about deletions, and couldn't remember who it was that said "kill all your little darlings." Today, on Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac," this appeared:

It's the birthday of anthologist and writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, born in Cornwall in 1863. Quiller-Couch published fiction and literary criticism under the pen name "Q" and was best known at the time for his publication of the Oxford Book of English Verse (1250-1900), a book that remained the most popular anthology of its kind for nearly 70 years. But Q is remembered by writers today — or rather, not remembered -- for one of the most enduring but non-attributed pieces of writing advice ever given. He wrote in his 1916 book On the Art of Writing, "Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it -- whole-heartedly -- and delete it before sending your manuscript to press: Murder your darlings." Now a popular catchphrase among editors especially, "murder your darlings" admonishes writers to refrain from being too precious about their prose and to trust in the values of simplicity and efficiency.