SOURCE: Phiddian, Robert. “Have You Eaten Yet?: The Reader in A Modest Proposal.” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 36, no. 3 (summer 1996): 603-21.

In the following essay, Phiddian considers the position of the reader in A Modest Proposal, who experiences revulsion at the suggestion of eating babies to bolster economic prosperity.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my Acquaintance in London; that a young healthy Child, well nursed, is, at a Year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome Food; whether Stewed, Roasted, Baked, or Boiled; and, I make no doubt, that it will equally serve in a Fricasie, or Ragoust.

We would prefer to believe that this is not funny, but we laugh.¹ What is the quality of this laughter? What does it tell us about Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal? And what does it tell us about ourselves?

I

It is not, in any straightforward...