Editing A Modest Proposal (section)

{{Short description|1729 satirical essay by Jonathan Swift}}
{{Use British English|date=October 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2017}}
{{Infobox book
| name     = A Modest Proposal
| image    = A Modest Proposal 1729 Cover.jpg
| author   = [[Jonathan Swift]]
| subject  =
| genre    = [[Satirical]] essay
| pub_date = 1729
| wikisource = The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 9/A Modest Proposal
}}

'''''A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen<!-- NOTE: This is the original spelling. Please do not modify it. Thank you. --> to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick<!-- NOTE: This is the original spelling. Please do not modify it. Thank you. -->''''',<ref name="gutenberg">{{cite book | url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm | title=A Modest Proposal, by Dr. Jonathan Swift | publisher=[[Project Gutenberg]] | date=27 July 2008 | access-date=10 January 2012}}</ref> commonly referred to as '''''A Modest Proposal''''', is a [[Juvenalian satire|Juvenalian satirical]] essay written and published by [[Anglo-Irish people|Anglo-Irish]] writer and clergyman [[Jonathan Swift]] in 1729. The essay suggests that poor people in [[Kingdom of Ireland|Ireland]] could ease their economic troubles by selling their children [[Human cannibalism|as food]] to the [[elite]]. Swift's use of satirical [[hyperbole]] was intended to mock hostile attitudes towards the poor and [[anti-Catholicism]] among the [[Protestant Ascendancy]] as well as the [[Dublin Castle administration]]'s policies in general.<ref>Swift notes that "the number of Popish infants, is at least three to one in this kingdom, and therefore it will have one another collateral advantage, by lessening the number of Papists among us."</ref> In English writing, the phrase "a [[wikt:modest proposal|modest proposal]]" is now conventionally an allusion to this style of straight-faced satire.