Swift as a prose Writer stands unique

it's justly and honestly been aforementioned that Swift is the best prose writer of England. He dominated primarily the half of the Eighteenth century as DR. Johnson did the second. As an intellectual, he was way superior to Johnson. A number of his satires are misanthropic and cynical, however, none will question his ethical integrity and also the bold earnestness with which he removes the external soft things to bring out the corruption that lies at their heart. Indeed, the extensiveness of his satire is exceptional. Swift sensitiveness to the corruption and the emerging age of reason prompted him to take up his lash. The age merited witticism, and his personal disposition and disappointment created him keen enough to provide it. Swift is perfectly right when he says in The death of Dean:

“Perhaps I may allow the Dean

had too much satire in his vein,

and seemed determined not to starve it,

because no age could more deserve it”




The greatness of Swift satire lies in style. Wit, sarcasm, irony, allegory, banter, and many other techniques, which are used to perfection by him in his Crusade against folly, injustice, and irrationality. Whichever weapon perhaps he be using for the attack, his witticism is typically darker and much more compelling than that of most writers of his age. He might appear bit gentle, however, he fairly enough cuts deep to the terrible heart of life. In many cases, his satire is extremely distressing because it presents things in an exceedingly fairly unconventional perspective eminently calculated to shatter the complacency of the reader.




Of all the sarcastic techniques, the one most effectively one, utilized by Swift is irony. With Swift, irony means way more than simply a figure of speech. He creates a fictive character to convey his message and feelings to the reader. His targeted irony is highlighted usually by the stark contrast between the views expressed by the persona and the common sense views. Swift wrote an awfully large amount of prose items of that most important is “The Battle of the Books, A Tale of Tub and Gulliver’s Travels. The first one is simply a mock-heroic. A Tale of Tub is meant to be a satire on the various and gross corruption in religion and learning. It portrays the Church of England as the best in “doctrine and discipline,” and at the same time admonishes the shallow writers and critics of the age. Gulliver’s Travels is the most illustrious of Swift work. In it, he viciously inducted “that animal -called man.” Though it's comprised of a travel romance, in reality, it's a terrible tale of human follies. Its a tale of well-calculated satire on all the activities of human life and all the attributes of human nature, not sparing even the human body. However, it's irony is so deep that it has been a favourite gift book for children. In fact, the book is enjoyed by all children from nine to ninety’!





Credit must be given to Swift for the clarity, Precision and the “conciseness”, of his prose style. Swift despises all unnecessary ornament. His imagery, is subtle, while the use of language highlights his mastery of language. All such magical techniques take his reader into a region where he wishes them to be. No doubt, Swift had a mastery over the employment of his prose technique.