A Modest Proposal in the Context of Swift's Irish Tracts: A Relevance-theoretic Study

Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' has always aroused the interest not just of literary critics, but also of linguists and pragmatists. Within the latter approaches, the study of irony, and more concretely, the intentions and attitudes that must have guided the production of such an intricate work, have always been paramount. However, it seems that within pragmatics the analysis has been restricted so far to the 1729 work itself. In our view, it is interesting to contextualize this masterpiece of irony and satire within the wider production on Ireland by Swift, an approach that remains to be done. Accordingly, this work sets out to analyze a selection of Swift's 'Irish Tracts', with a view to tracing the evolution within Swift's literary production of his views and attitudes towards the situation of his homeland. Even though different pragmatic approaches are coped with, the emphasis is laid upon the contributions that the relevance-theoretical framework and its studies on irony may bring for the understanding of this Tract. The works selected are meant to cover and also be representative of the main phases currently distinguished within Swift's production on 'The Irish Question'. It is therefore hoped that a deeper analysis of the former works by Swift on this topic will provide new insights for a better understanding of 'A Modest Proposal'.