Character study of Achitophel

Assignment 

Name : Latta J. Baraiya 

Roll no : 12

Paper : The Renaissance Literature 

Semester : M.A sem 1

Topic : Character study of Achitophel in "Absalom and Achitophel"

Submitted to : Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English MKBU 

Introduction 

Absalom and Achitophel, verse satire by English poet John Dryden published in 1681. The poem, which is written in heroic couplets, is about the Exclusion crisis, a contemporary episode. Dryden based his work on a biblical incident recorded in 2 Samuel 13–19. These chapters relate the story of King David’s favourite son Absalom and his false friend Achitophel, who persuades Absalom to revolt against his father. In his poem, Dryden assigns each figure in the crisis a biblical name; e.g., Absalom is Monmouth, Achitophel is Shaftesbury, and David is Charles II. Despite the strong anti-Catholic tenor of the times, Dryden’s clear and persuasive dissection of the intriguers’ motives helped to preserve the duke of York’s position. 

Absalom and Achitophel 

Dryden writes Absalom and Achitophel by the request of Charles II in order to defend the King and his followers against the Whigs led by the Earl of Shaftesbury. From the history, we know that Charles had no legitimate son who could ascend the throne after his death. Therefore, the King was in a problem and nominated his brother James, the Duke of York, as the legal heir of the throne. But in general the people of England were not in favour of James because he was a Catholic. The Catholics wanted James as their King but the Whigs did not want James. The Whigs were vigorously against the Duke of the York. They now want to succeed the throne the Duke of Monmouth an illegitimate son of Charles. Though the king loved his illegitimate son, he opposes this. At this time, Dryden was Poet Laureate and so he was asked to write a poem in support of the King attacking king’s opponents. Dryden did this ridiculing the opponents depicting a mirror like poem Absalom and Achitophel. According to Hobbes, 

"in every society there is an 

absolute monarch and this monarch governs the society"

In this poem, Achitophel is a treacherous conspirator whose name was cursed not only by the people of his contemporary age but also by the succeeding generations. 

◆Character study of Achitophel◆

Achitophel here is represented as sagacious, bold, a fiery soul, a great wit blessed with wealth and honour. As every man is free in his will, his mind was always busy for making secret plans and for wicked advice. At the same time he was restless and had a lust for power but when he was in power he wasted of it. Outwardly, he appeared to be prudent and courageous, noted for taking risk, but he was mischievous by nature. 

• Earl of Shaftesbury :-

Dryden argued that Shaftesbury had a weak and sickly body but he never cared it and he was always busy in planning intrigues against the King and the Crowd and against Absalom for his personal gain. 

“The Power of man, to take it 

Universally, is his present means to obtain some future apparent Good”

We can connect this with the nature of Shaftesbury. 

• False in Friendship :-

Dryden explains in passage that why Achitophel wanted to use Absalom in the struggle against the King. Achitophel knows that he is unpopular and as such he could not be able to lead the revolt against the King. Moreover, his loyalty was suspected and he was to face the treason. He therefore wanted a suitable person to become the leader and to use him. 

Achitophel knew that Absalom had no legal claims to the throne and would have to depend on the support of the people. Regarding this, Achitophel actually would like to use Absalom as a weapon. So, Achitophel thinks in this way, the authority of the king would be undermined and it may pave the way for the rule of the mob. 

• Religionity :-

As we know that people have blind faith in religion. In this poem Dryden also include this topic as very important fact for fight and rebel. Achitophel is trying to prove the King as a Jebusite or Roman Catholic.

“Of listening Crowds, with jealousies and Fears of 

Arbitary Counsels brought to light, And proves the King himself a Jebusite”

• Achitophel 

(A&A, 212-214)

Thus Achitophel plans to rebel against the royal power with multitude. Achitophel united the discontented people of Israel (England) into a single party which had been working separately, now began to work together to achieve one and the same goal. The best people among them included persons of royal blood who were of the view that the king was exercising too much power. Some of the men were really patriotic but they were misguided. They were not evil minded but they were won over by unholy tricks and intrigues. These people made extraordinary claims on the basis of their property and the result was that the government could not stand this pressure and broke down. the general people treated the Popish plot with contempt and hated to be out done by the Jebusites. These people were lead by hot headed priests. These priests were deprived of their positions by the Act of Uniformity passed in 1662 during the Commonwealth and now they reasserted their false notions with great enthusiasm in order to reestablish the theocratic State established by Cromwell. They wanted to regain the power of the Commonwealth under which the parliament and the priests governed the people and justified their misrule by claiming that their actions were inspired by God. Who could be better qualified to rule the country than the race of priests, if spiritual grace was regarded as a basis of political authority. The Presbyterian priests led the crowd. They were not sure of their goal; they spoke vehemently against the government. They used all their strength to destroy discipline and peace. They did not wish to build anything, but they were out of destroying everything. 

• Ambition and Power :-

Power and ambition drive the plot of John Dryden’s poem “Absalom and Achitophel.” King David of Israel has all the power in theory, but in practice, he has little ambition. According to Achitophel, the King’s deceitful counselor, David is lacking manly force, and he gives in too easily to the people. The King is mild and hesitant to draw blood, and Achitophel, in his own ambition for increasing power, sees David as weak. But when should people strive their bonds to break, Achitophel says to David’s son Absalom, “If not when kings are negligent or weak?” Dryden's poem suggests that the desire for power is a common one in the hearts of men. Almost all men want it in some fashion or another, and they are easily swayed from their rightful place and beliefs if given the opportunity to amass it. Absalom is generally a good, loving, and moral son, but he cannot help himself when Achitophel comes calling with whispers of the throne. Achitophel also holds a significant position, but it is not enough for him. Whether one is in politics, the law, or religion, one still has these desires. Dryden doesn't condemn ambition outright, but he asserts that one must know his place and that, if it is not moral or legitimate to seek a specific office or position, then the one who occupies it has the right to resist with force. Absalom wants to rule over the country, and if it's not possible then he wants to destroy the authority of the king. 

• Satire :-

The use of typology in the biblical context of the poem suggests a fine distinction between Absalom’s response to the temptation, and to Achitophel’s well-spoken words. By using types to persuade Absalom of his role as savior, Achitophel becomes an ironic Gospel prophet, and Absalom a false messiah. Achitophel is not slow to offer specific examples of his predictions. He first claims that Absalom’s nativity was marked by some royal planet that ruled the southern sky a favorable omen. The astronomical sign, which is one of the messianic allusions of the temptation scene, is not the correct nativity sign ! The star of the real Messiah rises in the east, not the south.

Next, Achitophel calls Absalom the country’s cloudy pillar, guardian fire, and second Moses. All three are familiar biblical signs; and the pillar and fire are promised in Isaiah as signs of god’s renewed presence among the Israelites. The typical signs that Achitophel mentions have general biblical meaning and would have been persuasive for Absalom, the biblical prince. There is a great deal of irony in this, warning of Achitophel’s deceptive persuasion. Hoping to convince Absalom of the practicality of a “pleasing rape upon the crown”, Achitophel associates David’s old age with his supposed political impotence. Achitophel attempts to remove the kingship and the question of secession from the authority of Heaven and the law of God by falsifying the account of David’s return from exile. According to Achitophel, David was called from Gath by fortune; according to the Bible, he was called from exile by god and anointed by Heaven. Achitophel’s argument makes the sanctity of heaven dependent on the arbitrary role of fortune’s wheel, whose prizes must be grabbed. In the context of biblical history, that ethic obviously contradicts the moral code and world order implied by God’s written law. The association between God and David is made through the clever comparison of divine and human fertility. There is some irony in seeing God’s abundant creation reflected in the king’s sexual extravagances, but the irony doesn’t reduce the status of the king. It serves, at the beginning of the poem, to separate the person of the king from the office of the king. 

• Portrayal of David by Achitophel :-

The opening scenes emphasize David as an indulgent father, not as head of the country. David’s pleasure in Absalom parallels God’s attitude toward Adam in the Garden, but there are two ways of reading this allusion back into Achitophel’s portrait of David. The most obvious is that Achitophel unknowingly predicts the final triumph of David as a Samson figure who wreaks havoc on his enemies and asserts the force of God’s law.

But, in describing David, Achitophel is also appealing to David’s relationship to Christ, especially Christ among enemies and false friends. That relationship also suggests the final victory of God over Satan and all antichrists. Moreover, David as paralleled with Samson, given the typical relationship that both Old Testament figures bear to Christ, plays off nicely against David’s own reference to Absalom as a false Samson. 

• Political sense :-

Achitophel know that how other characters are useful for him. The plans are always made in his mind. Some of the rebel leaders belonged to the aristocracy. The most important among them was Zimri who is the Duke of Buckingham. He had so many qualities that he seemed to be a symbol of all mankind. He was rigid and inflexible in his opinions but unfortunately he held the wrong opinions. He tried his hand at everything but did not stick to any activity for any length of time. Within a month, he would perform the duties of a chemist, fiddler, statesman and a verses and drinking. Besides this, he had numerous other fancies and ideas which he had never put into practice. And Achitophel know that how to use this type of person for his personal benefit. 

• Achitophel of Today's Generation :-

We have lot many Achitophels in and around our town and us. Who looking for their personal desire and advantages. Some of them are also our relatives and our trustful persons. For their personal revenge they use us as weapon like Absalom and provoke us against our near and dear one. But it's our responsibility to be awake with this type of situations. 

Conclusion 

To wind up we can say that the combination of exceptional intellectual caliber and stupendous moral bankruptcy is too rare which we see in Achitophel. It is true that it is not to be found in the character of every politician. Such men as Achitophel, pursuing their ambitious and selfish political goal with extraordinary brilliance through devious means, do exist. There may be few persons of such brilliant intellect who put their intelligence to such devious schemes, but they certainly linger in all lands and in all times. It is true to some extent that, the Earl of Shaftesbury cannot be removed from the context in which Dryden puts him, for we cannot have the same political situation as existed in England at that time. But most of the features presented in Achitophel are to be found universally among politicians hypocrisy, lack of integrity, ambition, etc. When an acutely intelligent man turns his mind to a lust for power, he makes use of his intellectual ability to gain his ends unscrupulously. Such men are to be found in increasing numbers in the modern world of power politics. It proves the universality of Dryden’s portraiture of the Earl of Shaftsbury. 

Contrast between S. T. Coleridge and William Wordsworth

 

Assignment 

Name : Latta J. Baraiya 

Roll no : 12

Paper : Literature of Romantics 

Semester : M.A sem 1

Topic : Contrast between S. T. Coleridge and William Wordsworth

Submitted to : Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavngar University 

Introduction 

The early Romantic period coincides with what is often called the “Age of Revolutions” including of course, the American and the French revolutions an age of upheavals in political, economic and social traditions. The age which witnessed the initial transformations of the industrial revolution. The take off of Romantic Movement in English Language is set in the year 1798 when William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, publish of their poem called “Lyrical Ballads”. Though, these two lake-side poets wrote the poetic book, they have different view of the way poetry is seen, unlike William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge had an inspiration towards the supernatural, the mystic and the occult. A revolutionary energy was also at the core of Romanticism, which quite consciously set out to transform not only the theory and practice of poetry (and all art) but the very way we perceive the world. Some of its major precepts have survival into the twenteth century and still affect our contemporary period. 

Romantic writers generally see themselves as reacting against the thought and literary practices of the preceding century. The Romantist’s major subject matter is the beauty and satisfactions derive from nature. Romantists believe in naturalism and realism in the place of morality. They believe that man should not be conformed or stereotyped to one norm of code rather derive pleasure from what he derive from nature. Be that as it may, more emphasis is not laid on the thematic study of Romantic poetry rather that the beauty is derived in its form following the theory of arts for art’s sake. “Nature” meant many things to the Romantics, it was often presented as itself a work of art, constructed by a divine imagination, in emblematic language, for example, throughout “song of myself”, Whitman makes a practice of presenting common place items in nature... 

“ants”, 

“heap’d stones”, and 

“poke-weed” 

as containing divine elements and he refers to the “grass” as a natural “hieroglyphic”, “the handkerchief of the lord”. While particular perspectives with regards to nature varied considerably nature is perceived as a healing power, a source of subject and image, a refuge from the artificial constructs of civilization, including artificial language, the prevailing views accorded nature the status of an organically unified whole. It was viewed as “organic”, rather than as in the scientific or rationalist view, as a system of “mechanical” laws, for romanticism displaced the rationalist view of the universe as a machine with the analogue of an “organic” image, a living tree or mankind itself. At the same time, Romantics gave greater attention both describing natural phenomena accurately and to capturing “sensuous nuance” and this is as true of Romantic landscape painting. Accuracy of observation, however, was not sought for its own sake. Romantic nature poetry is essentially poetry of meditation. 

◆WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850) :-

William Wordsworth was born in 1770 at Cockermouth in Cumberland. He grew up in the Lake District, the beautiful area of mountains, lakes and streams near the Scottish borders in North West England. The natural beauty and grandeur of this area was a major source of inspiration for Wordsworth throughout his life. His mother died when he was eight and his father died when he was thirteen. Like his friend Samuel Coleridge, Wordsworth was denied the blessing and comfort of a happy home. The considerable sum of money left to the children was withheld for some years for legal reasons, but William Wordsworth was nevertheless able to attend Cambridge University in 1787, where he found the curriculum boring. In 1790, he made a tour through France to the Alps with a fellow student travelling on foot like a peddler. He witnessed the Great Revolution of 1787-1890 in France. In 1802, Wordsworth finally inherited the money let to him by his father and married a childhood friend from the Lake District, Mary Hutchinson. Disaster followed in 1802, his favourite brother, John, a ship captain was drowned at sea. In 1810, the friendship between Wordsworth and Coleridge was broken by an open quarrel. Offsetting the sadness of these middle years however was the steady growth of Wordsworth reputation as a poet. 

William Wordsworth’s major work was his autobiographical poem titled “the prelude” completed in 1805. He continued to make changes and it was not published until his death. William Wordsworth died by re-aggravating a case of pleurisy on 23 April, 1850, and was buried at St. Oswald’s Church in Grasmere. His widow Mary published his lengthy autobiographical poem to Coleridge as the prelude several months after his death. 

William Wordsworth for the very first time, endeavors to define poetry and poetic process. It is a revolutionary work which attempts to free the poet and poetry from the slavish bonds of ancients and exhibits freedom and liberty. It was a response or reaction against the preceding neoclassical age. On the other hand T.S. Eliot’s concept of poetry and poetic process is a reaction against romanticism and humanism. Here is some interesting view about poetry by Wordsworth and Eliot :

Wordsworth’s concept of poetic process and poetry	T.S. Eliot’s theory of impersonality and concept of poetry
1. Reaction against Classicism	1. Reaction against romanticism and humanism
2. Subjective	2. Objective
3. Expression of Personality	3. An Escape from personality
4. Individual	4. Universal
5. Liberty to express personal emotions.	5. Personal emotions must be transformed in to generalized emotions
6. Non-Conformist (Freedom and liberty from Past)	6. Conformist (gives importance to tradition)
7. Poetry should be simple	7. Poetry should depict complexity
8. Poet is a man	8. Poet is a craftsman

◆SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 

(1772-1834) :-

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on 21 October 1772 in the country town of Ottery St. Mary, Devon, England. Samuel’s father, the Reverend John Coleridge was a respected vicar of the parish and headmaster of Henry VIII’s Free Grammar School at Ottery. After the death of Samuel’s father, he was sent to Christ’s Hospital, a charity School founded in the 16th century in Greyfriars, London where he remained throughout his childhood, studying and writing poetry. Throughout life, Coleridge idealized his father as pious and innocent, while his relationship with his mother was more problematic. His childhood was characterized by attention seeking, which has been linked to his dependent personality as an adult. He was rarely allowed to return home during the school term, and this distance from his family at such a turbulent time proved emotionally damaging. He later wrote of his loneliness at school in the poem “Frost at Midnight”. He attended Jesus College, Cambridge from 1791-1794. In 1792, he won the Browne Gold Medal for an Ode that he wrote on the slave trade. In 1798, Coleridge and Wordsworth published a joint volume of poetry, “Lyrical Ballads” which proved to be the starting point for the English Romantic Movement. In 1800, he returned to England and shortly thereafter settled with his family and friends at Keswick in the Lake District of Cumberland to be near Grasmere, where Wordsworth had moved. Soon, however, he was beset by marital problems, illnesses, increased opium dependency, tensions with Wordsworth and a lack of confidence in his poetic powers, all which fuelled the composition of dejection: An Ode and an intensification of his philosophical studies. He died in 1834 on the 25 of July in Highgate. 

◆Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Contrast to William Wordsworth :-

William Wordsworth and S. T. Coleridge are two giants of the Romantic Period. They are the leaders of the Revival of Romanticism. Coleridge's concept of a poet!! They contribute a great lot in this respect. But they do not hold the same views on the nature, function and creation of poetry and poet. Their attitude to them often differs from each other. Their ideas show their different dispositions. It is also true that their ideas are innovative. Wordsworth throws much light on the nature and function of a poet in his "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads". He is highly conscious of the distinction between a common man and a man of genius. This difference is worth considering. It has a certain degree. This leads Wordsworth to analyses the qualities of a poet. His concept of poet is new. Similarly, Coleridge expresses his own ideas of poet in his best-known critical piece, "Biographia Literaria". He shows some qualities of a poet similar to and different from those of Wordsworth. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is often discussed in association with his peer, William Wordsworth. This is due in part to their friendship and joint ventures on works such as Lyrical Ballads. Although he is often “paired” with his counterpart Wordsworth, there are several differences in Coleridge’s poetic style and philosophical views. Coleridge’s poetry differs from that of Wordsworth, and his association with Wordsworth overshadows Coleridge’s individual accomplishments as a Romantic poet. In addition, Coleridge’s poetry complicates experiences that Wordsworth views as very simple and very commonplace. Samuel Taylor Coleridge has a poetic diction unlike that of William Wordsworth, he relies more heavily on imagination for poetic inspiration, and he also incorporates religion into his poetry differently. Coleridge’s different views, combined with his opium addiction, led to an eventual breach in his friendship with Wordsworth  a friendship that had begun in 1797. 

Despite any difference, the two poets were compatible because they were both “preoccupied with imagination, and both [used] verbal reference in new ways”. In 1798 the publication of their joint effort, Lyrical Ballads, signified the height of their relationship. This came at a time when they were together in Alfoxden, where they had enjoyed the simple pleasures of spending time together, discussing ideas, and devising schemes for publications. 

“Never again would the two poets have the sort of compatibility which allowed for major differences of opinion, without creating unease”

Following this time period, their friendship began to slowly deteriorate; beginning with criticisms of each other’s poetry, then growing into conflicting views on creativity and intellect, and finally culminating in a “radical difference” of “theoretical opinions” concerning poetry. However, their friendship could have been spared, had Coleridge not been misinformed by Basil Montagu that Wordsworth referred to him as a “burden” and a “rotten drunkard”. That was the last straw, and had deeply upset Coleridge, who was by this point addicted to liquid opium and very sensitive about the topic. Thus, after 1810 their friendship would never be the same, and although Wordsworth and Coleridge had once been compatible, and are often paired together as Romantic poets, it was ultimately their distinguishable differences that led to their falling out.

Coleridge’s different perception of poetry is what sets him aside from Wordsworth. In fact, Coleridge even reflected on the difference between his contributions and those of Wordsworth in Lyrical Ballads. He stated, 

“my endeavors would be directed to persons and characters supernatural  Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was…to give charm of novelty to things of everyday”. 

Although Coleridge’s retrospective interpretation of this work could be viewed as an overly simplistic division of labor, it nonetheless proves that Coleridge viewed his poetic style as different than that of Wordsworth. Moreover, Coleridge’s retrospective interpretation insinuated that he dealt with complex subject matter, while Wordsworth gave the ordinary a revitalizing freshness. Even though they worked together successfully on the publication Lyrical Ballads, Coleridge and Wordsworth clearly had contrasting opinions about “what constituted well written poetry.” 

Whether their differences stemmed from religion, means of inspiration, or simply poetic diction, it is evident that these two poets were uniquely individual. Moreover, although Samuel Coleridge is often paired with William Wordsworth, upon further examination one can plainly see that the two poets are undoubtedly different. The similarities between them often overshadow their individual achievements, ideas, and styles. Due to the fact that Samuel Coleridge sought out the acquaintance of William Wordsworth and had his appreciation for Wordsworth’s poetry well documented, Coleridge is considered the lesser of the two poets. Additionally, before the men collaborated on Lyrical Ballads, Coleridge was temporarily viewed as Wordsworth’s understudy. Combined with the fact that his opium addiction crippled his poetic potential, these elements portray Coleridge as less accomplished poet than Wordsworth. Regardless of popular opinion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge possessed his own unique poetic diction, sought non-traditional methods of poetic inspiration, conveyed original theories about the imagination, and distinctly incorporated his religious philosophies into his poetry. It is for these reasons that Samuel Taylor Coleridge remains a pillar for the Romantic era of poetry. 

◆View about Poet :-

According to Coleridge, imagination and emotion are two principal qualities of a poet. A poet is a person who has excessive ability to manage different qualities. He plays a reconciliatory role in the activities of different concepts and percepts. He is a person who is gifted with a special ability to feel emotions. Apparently, the mind of a poet seems to be disordered. But inwardly, it is always in an ordered condition. The poet is adjusted with the universe. The universe never comes out from its proper order. In the same way, the poet's mind never districts from its track. It is always in a proper order. The imaginative activity of the poet does not come out of its routine work. Imaginative activities of the poet follow the ordered direction of his mind. Coleridge thinks that poetry is a recurrence of God's creative act. For this reason, the effort of the poet is the poet's adoration of God. The poet recreates the glory of God. So he is the singer of God. 

According to Wordsworth, a poet must feel the pulse of the common man. He is the poet of common humanity but not for the poets only. In this respect, we mention Edmund Spenser. He is called the poets' poet in the Elizabethan Age. When we go through his poetry, we feel that he does not write it for ordinary man but writes only for the poets and the elites. In the Neo-classical Period, we see that the poets composed poems in describing the decorated drawing room, coffee houses etc. Personifications of abstract ideas are salient features of the eighteenth century. There is no room for common people in their poetry. Wordsworth disapproves such tendency of the poets. He says,

     

  "But poets do not write for poets alone but for men." 

Conclusion

In conclusion, we can say that Wordsworth does not produce any well-knit definition of a poet in his famous "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads". Similarly, Coleridge does not define a poet well in his "Biographia Literaria" too. Both of them only venture to identify some qualities or ideas of a man who intends to get himself included in the class of poets. They try to show some features or qualities of a poet in their critical pieces. 

Coleridge in this sense differentiates himself from his contemporary romantic poet William Wordsworth because Wordsworth‘s poems follow rural and humble, rustic and natural visions, whereas Coleridge finds his fantastic creations in nature‘s forces and nature‘s creations. Secondly Wordsworth does not live in illusion or create any illusion, while Coleridge with his figurative words draws a world of poetic dream, instead of poetic sensibility, in which Coleridge‘s poems earlier leave reader awfully dumbstruck, with congealed nerves and at times heart wracking state while the poems of William Wordsworth‘s poems carry the reader to a phenomenon of truth and bliss. Coleridge‘s objectivity to nature‘s beauty is of wonder and enigma, while Wordsworth‘s subjectivity to nature is of a kind of a friend and guide. Both the poets of romantic age sensitise common man to feel nature from the artistic sense in order to derive moral good in human life. It is apt to conclude with the fact that human consciousness, collective consciousness and universal consciousness do play a major role in imparting aesthetics to a piece of literature or art, but it is the high-flown sensibility, logical reasoning and imaginative talent that creates and recreates the world of literary tradition and creativity. The poetic pleasure is possible if there is proper and balanced coordination of language and harmony. Both the abovementioned poets with their own poetic capacity contributed significantly in a novel way to design the poetic art and truth.

A Tale of The Tub assignment

Assignment 

Name : Latta J. Baraiya 

Roll no : 12

Paper : Neoclassical Literature 

Semester : M.A sem 1

Topic : A Tale of The Tub by Swift 

Submitted to : Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Introduction 

Jonathan Swift's Tale of the Tub is a brilliant failure. It is a prose satire intended as a defence of the Anglican church, but it was widely interpreted by contemporary readers as an attack on all religion. At the time of writing it, Swift was a junior Anglican clergyman hoping for substantial preferment in the Church. The appearance of the Tale, and its assumed message, was a serious obstacle to his promotion. 

One of the things that makes the Tale difficult to interpret for that the work attacks multiple things of things at the same time: it's an allegory about religious differences it's a satire on pedantry and false scholarship it's a parody of the contemporary book trade it has attached to it two further treatises, the 'Battle of the Books', and the 'Mechanical Operation of the Spirit'. 

◆Title of The Novel:-

The first thing that's puzzling about A Tale of A Tub is its title. The preface explains that it is the practice of seamen when they meet a whale to throw out an empty tub to divert it from attacking their ship. The whale that this tub is thrown out for most obviously represents Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. Swift's tub is intended to distract Hobbes and other critics of the church and government from picking holes in their weak points. 

A Tale of a Tub was published anonymously. But unlike with those later works, Swift was obsessively concerned with preserving the anonymity of his authorship of the Tale. His authorship of the Tale was never publicly acknowledged in his lifetime, nor did it appear in authorised editions of his collected works. 

But although Swift vigorously maintained the fiction of anonymity in relation to A Tale of a Tub, never at any point did he try to suppress the book as a whole; he only tried to obscure his direct connection with it. But despite the fact that he was desperate that no one should ever know that he wrote A Tale of a Tub, he also seems to have been extraordinarily proud of his satire. The one comment that we have on record from Swift about the Tale comes from a letter transcribed for the Earl of Orrery: 

"There is no doubt but that he was Author of the Tale of the Tub. He never owned it: but as he one day made his Relation Mrs Whiteway read it to him, he made use of This expression. 'Good God! What a flow of imagination had I, when I wrote this".

There is a strange paradox here: Swift wanted to disavow his connection with the work, yet at the same time he wanted the genius evident in the satire to be recognised as his. 

◆Religious Orthodoxy :-

Swift says in the 'Apology' that was added to the 1710 edition that A Tale of a Tub was partly intended to attack the religious groups that he saw as threatening the hegemony of the Anglican church. In the Tale, Swift uses the analogy of the three brothers 

• MartiN [The Anglican Church]

• Peter [The Catholic Church]

• Jack [The Low Church, or Dissenters]

In doing so, he is trying to demonstrate that the spiritual practices of the Catholic Church and dissenting sects were based on a false interpretation of the true Word, the Bible. However, the sweep of Swift's irony in the book, and, the destabilising and confusing nature of its changes in satiric personae meant that many of his contemporaries read the Tale as an attack all religion. 

Swift's decision to publish the apology in the revised edition of 1710 likely is related to his anxiety about his career at this time, and the Tale's potential to compromise his position. Late 1710, was perhaps the most exciting and promising time in Swift's career he was being courted by the rising Tory leader Robert Harley to join the Tory cause, and power and importance seemed imminent. Swift was to believe for the rest of his life that his failure to secure the ecclesiastical promotions that he wanted was due to influential disapproval of the perceived irreligious tendencies of A Tale of a Tub. 

◆Authorship and Identity :-

If we think there may be more to Swift's desire to remain guarded about his authorship of A Tale of a Tub than just its potential to compromise his rise to power. Swift seems to be ambivalent about his ownership of the work not just in the original text of 1704, but also in the 'Apology' added in 1710. The 'Apology' is a very strange document: it purports to be a straightforward clearing up of unnecessary misunderstandings, but it actually fails to clear anything up at all. 

It is supposed to be an intervention in the controversy over the intended meaning of the Tale. However, the author of the 'Apology' does not admit to being Swift, or even the author of the Tale. Swift creates a third person figure that seems to ventriloquise a defence of the work that is part on behalf of an enraged and violated author, and part an outsider coming to his rescue. The apology refers consistently to the author, saying that 

'the author cannot conclude this apology without…' or 'the author observes'. 

But the tale is complicated by the Apology's use of an 'I' in it, a figure that is differentiated from the author. 

 ◆Originality :-

The idea of originality is vexed by A Tale of a Tub. As we've seen here, Swift both dismisses the importance of authorship and fiercely defends it. These ambiguous and contradictory concerns are is mirrored within the text, which in some ways it seems to push the boundaries of what can be called an original. A Tale of a Tub is profoundly postmodern in its intertextuality, its play with literary forms, and its changes in speaker and genre and that constantly undermine readerly expectations of the text. It parodies bookseller's catalogues, scholarly treatises, scientific works, effusive dedicatory prose, and it borrows, magpie-like, from a wide and disparate range of sources. A Tale of a Tub is a patchwork of unattributed quotations to Dryden, Marvell, Richard Bentley, Thomas Browne, and Joseph Addison. 

These ideas about originality are reflected in the Tale's relationship to one of its major influences. The text that the Tale most explicitly situates itself in relation to is one that also poses problems of classification as 'original work' John Dryden's Translation of the Works of Virgil in English, of 1697. Dryden's Virgil was the big publishing sensation of the decade. The former laureate issued his definitive version of the great Latin's epic poems, and Dryden's Virgil remained the standard edition until well into the twentieth century. 

◆Parody and Allegory :-

In addition to the 'digressions' that form a satire on modern learning and print culture, A Tale of a Tub's more obvious satire is that on abuses in religion. The satire works through the allegory of the three brothers: Martin, Peter, and Jack. Martin symbolises the Anglican Church (from Martin Luther) Peter symbolizes the Roman Catholic Church; and Jack (from John Calvin) symbolises the Dissenters. Their father leaves each brother a coat as a legacy, with strict orders that the coats are on no account to be altered. The sons gradually disobey his injunction, finding excuses for adding shoulder knots or gold lace, according to the prevailing fashion. Martin and Jack quarrel with the arrogant Peter (the Reformation), and then with each other, and then separate. As we might expect, Martin is by far the most moderate of the three, and his speech in section six is by the sanest thing anyone has to say in the Tale.

Both parody and allegory work by implicitly, or explicitly, comparing one sort of book with another. As a broad generalisation, they are concerned with intertextual relationships, and how you can use one text to invoke or critique another. But the distinction is that allegory teaches its readers to see beyond appearance to recognise truth, while parody teaches its readers to see beyond appearance to recognise error. 

In the case of the allegorical story of the three brothers, the ultimate pre-text is the Bible: the father's last recorded words take the form of a will, a dead letter, defining and confining the ways in which the sons are to live their lives:

''You will find in my Will (here it is) full Instructions in every Particular

concerning the Wearing and Management of your Coats; wherein you must be very exact, to avoid the Penalties I have appointed for every transgression or Neglect, upon which your future Fortunes will entirely depend''. 

The later subversion of the will provides us with an allegory of misreading. The abuse of the living coats (the Church) provides an allegory of desire and corruption. The brothers abuse and misinterpret the will as a way of figuring misuse and misinterpretation of the Bible. The attack on Jack, representing Dissenters, is particularly biting it targets the sectarian groups who exalted the individual worshipper or small congregation with their claims to inner light and private conscience, unchecked by tradition and institutional authority. 

◆Experimentation :-

A Tale of Tub is particularly noteworthy for its experimentation with, and departure from, the literary conventions of the period. Narrators’ voices and literary genres switch from section to section as a way of taking the work in radically new directions. Swift also concentrates his satirical fire on the new literary and publishing experiments that emerged in the early 18th century, particularly the apparent obsession of printers with producing endless numbers of novels and short pamphlets. By peppering 'A Tale of the Tub' with excessive punctuation and typographical marks, Swift parodies the enthusiasm for the publications that characterised the print market. Likewise, the work sets out to lampoon the uncritical consumption of contemporary literary prose, which Swift believed too easily led readers to an over-interpretation of meaning. 

◆Nature of Satire :-

Upon its publication, the public realized both that there was an allegory in the story of the brothers and that there were particular political references in the Digressions. Swift's targets in the Tale included indexers, note-makers, and, above all, people who saw "dark matter" in books. He attacks criticism generally, and he appeared to be delighted by the fact that one of his enemies, William Wotton, had offered to explain the Tale in an "answer" to the book and that one of the men he had explicitly attacked, Curll, had offered to explain the book to the public. In the fifth edition of the book in 1705, Swift provided an apparatus to the work that incorporated Wotton's explanations and Swift's narrator's own notes as well. The notes appear to occasionally provide genuine information and just as often to mislead, and William Wotton's name, a defender of the Moderns, was appended to a number of notes. This allows Swift to make the commentary part of the satire itself, as well as to elevate his narrator to the level of self-critic.

It is hard to say what the Tale's satire is about, since it is about any number of things. It is most consistent in attacking misreading of all sorts. Both in the narrative sections and the digressions, the single human flaw that underlies all the follies Swift attacks is over-figurative and over-literal reading, both of the Bible and of poetry and political prose. The narrator is seeking hidden knowledge, mechanical operations of things spiritual, spiritual qualities to things physical, and alternate readings of everything.

Within the "tale" sections of the book, Peter, Martin, and Jack fall into bad company (becoming the official religion of the Roman empire) and begin altering their coats by adding ornaments. They then begin relying on Peter to be the arbitrator of the will, and he begins to rule by authority (he remembered the handyman saying that he once heard the father say that it was alright to put on more ornaments), until such a time that Jack rebels against the rule of Peter. Jack begins to read the will (the Bible) overly literally. He rips the coat to shreds to try to restore the original state of the garment. He begins to rely only upon "inner illumination" for guidance and thus walks around with his eyes closed, after swallowing candle snuffs. Eventually, Peter and Jack begin to resemble one another, and only Martin is left with a coat that is at all like the original.

An important factor in the reception of Swift's work is that the narrator of the work is an extremist in every direction. Consequently, he can no more construct a sound allegory than he can finish his digressions without losing control. For a Church of England reader, the allegory of the brothers provides small comfort. Martin has a corrupted faith, one full of holes and still with ornaments on it. His only virtue is that he avoids the excesses of his brothers, but the original faith is lost to him. Readers of the Tale have picked up on this unsatisfactory resolution to both "parts" of the book, and A Tale of a Tub has often been offered up as evidence of Swift's misanthropy.

As has recently been argued by Michael McKeon, Swift might best be described as a severe skeptic, rather than a Whig, Tory, empiricist, or religious writer. He supported the Classics in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, and he supported the established church and the aristocracy, because he felt the alternatives were worse. He argued elsewhere that there is nothing inherently virtuous about a noble birth, but its advantages of wealth and education made the aristocrat a better ruler than the equally virtuous but unprivileged commoner. A Tale of a Tub is a perfect example of Swift's devastating intellect at work. By its end, little seems worth believing in.

Formally, the satire in the Tale is historically novel for several reasons. First, Swift more or less invented prose parody. What is interesting is that the word "parody" had not been used for prose before, and the definition he offers is arguably a parody of John Dryden defining "parody" in the "Preface to the Satires." Prior to Swift, parodies were imitations designed to bring mirth, but not primarily in the form of mockery. For example, Dryden himself imitated the Aeneid in "MacFlecknoe" to describe the apotheosis of a dull poet, but the imitation made fun of the poet, and not of Virgil.

Additionally, Swift's satire is relatively unique in that he offers no resolutions. While he ridicules any number of foolish habits, he never offers the reader a positive set of values to embrace. While this type of satire became more common as people imitated Swift, later, Swift is quite unusual in offering the readers no way out. He does not persuade to any position, but he does persuade readers from an assortment of positions. This is one of the qualities that has made the Tale Swift's least-read major work. 

Conclusion 

At the end we see a splendid performance of lack of self-awareness, one of the footnotes for a very obscure reference in the Tale concludes by solemnly declaring, “I believe one of the Author’s Designs was to set curious Men a hunting thro’ Indexes, and enquiring for Books out of the common Road”, essentially acknowledging that he as a scholar has been played the fool. The commentator remarks upon finding himself on a wild goose chase for an excellently constructed bit of nonsense alla Swift. In a similar vein, while the quest for the “Perfect edition” of a text is in some sense a valiant one, adopting a more relativist approach to editorial practice  and not simply taking Swift’s words at face value may save future scholars from “a hunting” and “enquiring” for the perfect copy of A Tale of a Tub when there is in fact no such thing.