Jonathan Swift’s Frustrated Humor

Jonathan Swift’s genius was to be understood by everyone. He was so insistent that his prose be plain enough for all readers that he once had his works read aloud to two servants. As each paragraph was read, he checked to see what they did and did not understand, and the work was edited until it was quite clear to the lads in livery. This care for the common reader made Swift one of those writers whom you will find quoted in everyday situations. When the Swift scholar Irvin Ehrenpreis was working in Dublin library, a young stack boy asked him who he was studying. “Ah yes,” said the boy on hearing Swift’s name, “burn everything English except their coals.”