Reinterpreting Swift's A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue
Challenging an embryonic modern myth
Swift's Proposal is generally accepted by most scholars to represent a genuine complaint, addressed to the Earl of Oxford, about declining standards of English and the need to introduce a language academy. However, this analysis of the Proposal ignores the fact that Swift was one of the greatest satirists in the English language, and it ignores the wider sociocultural and sociopolitical framework in which the text was published. A detailed reading of the Proposal is presented to place it alongside other satirical texts. The interpretation challenges canonical readings of the Proposal and opens it up for more interesting interpretative possibilities. The chapter argues that commentators should consider this text and other texts within the complaint tradition more carefully to focus on the language myths in assessing their sociohistorical significance. The danger of not doing so is the construction of another modern myth guiding the discourse of modern sociohistorical linguistics.
Keywords: complaint tradition, satire, language myths, sociohistorical linguistics, modern myth
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